THE BUTLER’S CHILD is the personal story of a Warner Brothers family grandson who spent more than 50 years as a fighting, no-holds-barred civil rights lawyer. Lewis M. Steel explores why he, a privileged white man, devoted his life to seeking racial progress in often uncomprehending or hostile courts. In fact, after writing a feature for The New York Times Magazine entitled "Nine Men in Black Who Think White," Lewis was fired from the NAACP and the entire legal staff resigned in support of him. Lewis speaks about his family butler, an African American man named William Rutherford, who helped raise him, as well as how Robert L. Carter, the NAACP's extraordinary general counsel, became his mentor, father figure and lifelong close friend.