Posted on 04/28/2018 4:10:52 PM PDT by BBell
Seventy years after he was fatally shot by police after trying to help a woman at a Gretna bus stop, the life of Royal Cyril Brooks was honored Saturday (April 28) at a ceremony in Harvey.
Politicians, churchgoers and Brooks' family members filled the pews inside Mt. Pilgrim Baptist Church to remember the 44-year-old trade unionist killed Feb. 27, 1948 while waiting to board a bus at Gretna Ferry Landing.
A woman had boarded the wrong bus and requested her fare of a nickel back. Bus driver Preston Herbert refused to refund her, but Brooks offered to ride on her fare and gave the woman his nickel. The exchange infuriated Herbert, who demanded Brooks exit the bus and had him arrested by Patrolman Alvin Bladsacker. While pulling Brooks off the bus, Bladsacker struck him with his gun. As Brooks was walking away, he fired two bullets, killing Brooks in front of several witnesses - including Brooks' son, who held his father as he took his last breaths.
A grand jury indicted Bladsacker for manslaughter, but he was eventually acquitted. Brooks' death sparked the creation of Louisiana's branch of the short-lived Civil Rights Congress, a national legal defense organization.
In the midday Saturday ceremony, the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project and the Kimbrough Scholars called for justice for Brooks and the many other lives lost to police brutality throughout history.
Reverend Louis Brooks Harrison, Brook's grand-nephew, kicked off the commemoration with a prayer that called for the attendees to "make change in the world in the name of Brooks and social justice." The crowd nodded their bowed heads in agreement.
Harrison mentioned how the same injustice that led to Brooks' death persists to this day, but maintained that all must gather together to create change and progress.
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
Some background.:
The Civil Rights Restorative Justice Project is an initiative by the Northeastern University School of Law to document every racially motivated killing in the American South between 1930 and 1970,[1] The project aims to serve as a resource for scholars, policymakers, and organizers involved in various initiatives seeking justice for crimes of the civil rights era. CRRJ focuses on research, particularly concerning cold cases, and supports policy initiatives on anti-civil rights violence, such as various remediation efforts including criminal and civil prosecutions, truth and reconciliation proceedings, and legislative remedies.
I'd like to know who is behind them. I did a cursory search and I found out they take donations but not who is behind the scenes.
The real civil rights issue is Afro-infanticide via abortion sponsored by white Liberals and the US government, black on black murder epidemic with a cold shoulder by liberal blacks and whites, and the DNC plantation cast system which enslaves a whole demographic of Americans.
They really do keep them. Looks like we might finally be breaking that up.
Why limit the documentation to the American South?
OJ Simpson doubled the score by slitting the throats of a white woman and man and walked away a free man; never served a day.
Damn Northern monkeys.
Northeastern is in Boston and we all know there is no history of racism in Boston.
Better still we could track *all* intentional killings...starting with the most recent and working backwards...and categorize them as to race of victim and race of killer.
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