Catherine Burks-Brooks was a civil rights activist who joined the Freedom Riders as they campaigned for anti-segregation laws to be enforced in the South.
- Died: July 3, 2023 (Who else died on July 3?)
- Details of death: Died in Birmingham, Alabama, of heart failure at the age of 83.
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Catherine Burks-Brooks’s legacy
Burks-Brooks was a student at Tennessee State University when the Freedom Rides began in 1961. In those now-famous rides, Black and white people rode interstate buses into the South, where federal laws forbidding segregation on interstate transportation were not being enforced. The Freedom Riders would seat Black and white riders next to each other, as well as placing Black riders in the front of the bus, which under segregation was reserved for white passengers.
The initial Freedom Rides were met with violence, which briefly shut down the effort. But when the rides were continued by members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Burks-Brooks joined in. She was one of the Black Freedom Riders who sat next to white riders – her fellow passenger was Paul Brooks, who would become her husband later that summer. Others on her bus included future Congressman John Lewis (1940–2020). When they arrived in Birmingham, they were arrested by the city’s notorious public safety commissioner, Bull Connor, who jailed them before personally driving them to the state line. As Connor dropped them off, Burks-Brooks cheekily told him that he’d see them back in Birmingham “by high noon.” They came close to fulfilling her promise, returning to Birmingham later in the day to continue protesting.
Burks-Brooks continued fighting for civil rights, participating in further Freedom Rides and in the Mississippi voting rights movement. In later years, she was an entrepreneur, saleswoman for Avon cosmetics, and substitute teacher.
Notable quote
“I couldn’t let old Bull have the last word. I told the Bull, I hollered it out, that we would see him back in Birmingham by high noon!” —from a 2013 interview for the Tennessean
Tributes to Catherine Burks-Brooks
Full obituary: The New York Times
