It seemed almost impossible at the time.

In the 1964 political-convention movie "The Best Man," a character stands in front of the delegates and gives a speech that is hopeful yet outlandish.

"Someday, we're going to have a Negro president. After that, we're going to do something for that other minority and elect a woman."

Forty-four years later, a black president is a distinct possibility, and a woman came remarkably close to securing her party's nomination.

The movie was written by Gore Vidal from his own play and was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, who later went on to make "Patton" and "Planet of the Apes." Henry Fonda stars as one presidential candidate, an intellectual and perhaps ineffectual liberal in an estranged marriage.

His opponent at their party's close-fought convention is a mud-slinging and possibly secretly gay conservative played by Cliff Robertson.

What makes the former president's prediction so remarkable is that the movie came out April 5, 1964, three months before passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That law forbade discrimination in voter registration and allowed blacks to register to vote with the same ease as whites.

A year later, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 effectively ended literacy tests and poll taxes, thus allowing more blacks to vote, particularly across the South and in Alaska.

What changed between then and now? What got us to the point where blacks and women can be serious candidates for the presidency?

According to Ellis West, a professor of political science at the University of Richmond, a broad-based movement grew over time until such formerly radical ideas largely became accepted.

"Obviously, you have to give credit to people involved in both of those so-called minority groups, blacks and women, for writing, lobbying and trying to bring about change," West said.

"They just worked at it consistently over quite a number of years, and their work has paid off in the form of statutes and Supreme Court decisions and so forth."

Eventually, members of the elite in government, business and the military "came to see that what the agitators were trying to accomplish made sense. So the elites went along with the people who were advocating for change," he said.

"The Best Man" will show on Turner Classic Movies next Tuesday night/Wednesday morning at 12:15 a.m.