I just wanted to be free like everybody else. Rosa Parks, an African American seamstress in 1955 Alabama, had no idea she was changing history when she refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus. Who was she, before and after her historic act, and how did it sound the death knell for Jim Crow? Acclaimed historian Douglas Brinkley brings mid-century America alive in this brilliant examination of a celebrated heroine in the context of her life and tumultuous times, revealing the quiet dignity, hope, courage and humor that have made this everywoman a living legend.