Catherine burks brooks biography samples

News reporters also were gathering, along with pro-segregationist protesters, who surrounded the place. There was another problem. According to news reports, it took 19 hours for the Kennedy Administration to pressure the company to provide a driver. Burks-Brooks said it was only after a rumor circulated that the feds were flying in a Black soldier to take the wheel that a driver was found.

On May 20, the state Highway Patrol escorted the bus to the city limits of Montgomery, where police were expected to take over the watch. No police were there. At the Greyhound station, an angry mob was growing. As Riders and journalists exited the bus, they were viciously beaten with baseball bats and pipes, especially the white riders.

Zwerg had to be hospitalized. Seigenthaler was knocked unconscious while trying to protect a woman rider from attack. Burks-Brooks bitterly recalls the white women who eagerly took part in the racist thuggery. Kill them n—ers! She and three other female Riders jumped in a Black cab, but the driver refused to take the interracial group. The entire group got out, but fellow Nashville Rider and activist Bernard Lafayette ordered the Black women back in the car and promised to find safe passage for the white women.

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The attack in Montgomery ultimately sputtered, thanks to the intervention of Floyd Mannstate director of Public Safety, who had been falsely assured that local police would keep order. Mann fired warning shots in the air and called in state troopers to help break up the mob. He arranged safe shelter for the female Riders. But more violence was on the horizon.

Ralph Abernathyto honor the Freedom Riders. Among the speakers were Shuttlesworth and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Outside, an ugly crowd of about 3, including women and children, surrounded the church. They started throwing rocks. Burks-Brooks was inside the church.

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Some of us got up to look out the window and we got hit by more rocks. Outside, an outnumbered contingent of about U. King phoned U. Attorney General Robert Kennedy to ask for help. Kennedy appealed to Gov. John Patterson to stop the violence. Eventually Patterson declared martial law in a portion of the city. Alabama National Guard and police moved in to shield the besieged church.

Later that night, the guard deployed Jeeps and trucks to safely remove the riders and parishioners. The next day, more Freedom Riders arrived in Montgomery as news of violence at the bus station and the church siege shocked many people in the nation and beyond. Meanwhile, the Kennedy administration had quietly reached a deal with Patterson and Mississippi Gov.

Ross Barnett to provide protection to the Riders as they traveled on toward Jackson. The federal government, in return, agreed not to intervene in any arrests when Riders reached the station. The violence that met these Freedom Riders was brutal and unchecked. And yet these young people persisted, and as a result of their courage and persistence the Kennedy administration finally asked the Interstate Commerce Commission to enforce the law of the land.

Rather, it was an organized resistance to injustice that exposed these young Americans to violence, jail, and occasional murder. Only three years later civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman were brutally and viciously murdered in Mississippi. Burks-Brooks herself was jailed several times and spent nearly a month in a brutal Mississippi state prison.

The stakes were incredibly high, and these young people had the courage to rise to the task. Burks became a district sales manager for Avon cosmetics inuntil Burks worked as a substitute teacher in Birmingham. Burks resided in a suburb outside of Birmingham, Alabama, volunteering her time by speaking to groups about her involvement in the Freedom Rides [ 2 ] until her death on July 3,at the age of Contents move to sidebar hide.

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Catherine burks brooks biography samples: Catherine Burks-Brooks was a prominent

On the second day of the freedom ride, May 18, Burks recalls bantering with a segregationist and Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner, Bull Connor as he drove Nashville freedom riders back to the Tennessee state line from jail. Burks later witnessed a siege of the First Baptist Church by angry segregationists on the following day. They later participated in the Mississippi voter registration movement, and co-edited the Mississippi Free Press from to Burks lived in the Bahamas in the s before relocating back to Birmingham, Alabama in Burks became a district sales manager for Avon cosmetics inuntil Burks now works as a substitute teacher in Birmingham.