Book excerpt: Our Auntie Rosa is the most intimate portrait yet of the great American hero—"the lady who refused to sit in the back of the bus." The family of Rosa Parks share their remembrances of the woman who was not only the mother of the civil rights movement, but a nurturing mother figure to them as well. Her brave act on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955, was just one moment in a life lived with great humility and decency. After the deaths of Rosa Parks's husband and brother, her nieces and nephews became her only family and the closest that she would ever experience to having biological sons and daughters. In this book, they share with readers what she shared with them about her experiences growing up in a racist South, her deep dedication to truth and justice, and the personal values she held closest to her heart.