Since he was a young boy in Navasota, Texas, Alvin Ailey loved to stomp his feet and clap his hands to the music of the True Vine Baptist choir. Later, he learned how to dance. He spent some time with the best teachers of the era and eventually started his own modern dance company, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

This is the story of Alvin Ailey's life – a life that left its imprint as much on the history of the American people as on the history of modern dance.