Episode Details

Wilma Rudolph wore a leg brace until she was twelve. Doctors told her she might never walk normally. Eight years later, she was the fastest woman on earth — winning three gold medals at the 1960 Rome Olympics and becoming the first American woman to achieve the Olympic triple. Then she came home to a segregated Tennessee and refused to attend her own victory parade unless it was integrated.

This episode traces Rudolph from her childhood battle with polio through the Rome Olympics, the integrated homecoming parade that broke Clarksville's color line, and the post-athletic career that proved she was as determined off the track as on it.

• Rudolph's childhood polio, the leg brace, and the family massage treatments that helped her walk
• Her rise from high school basketball star to Olympic sprinter under coach Ed Temple
• Three gold medals in Rome and the global fame that followed the 1960 Olympics
• The integrated victory parade in segregated Clarksville and Rudolph's post-Olympic activism