Produced by Susanne Mason. WRIT WRITER tells the story of Fred Cruz, an ordinary Texas prison inmate who became an extraordinary leader of the prisoners’ rights movement in the 1960s. During the 1940s and 50's, Cruz grew up in a drug-saturated, racially-segregated San Antonio, Texas. At 21, he found himself without the funds to hire a lawyer. Cruz began studying law in hopes of appealing his conviction. WRIT WRITER shows us how Cruz’s self-guided studies inspired him to work toward establishing prisoners’ human rights. Law became his passion, and his writs of habeas corpus --submitted to the courts on behalf of a other of prisoners-- infuriated prison officials, who punished him repeatedly. When Cruz sought help beyond the prison walls from the memorable “lady” lawyer Frances Jalet, and others, prison officials learned that they had met their match.