Catherine Burks-Brooks was 21 in 1961 when she joined a group of Black and white activists riding a bus through the segregated South.
At 11, the Black girl had refused to step out of the way to let white pedestrians pass on the sidewalk. As a teenager, she once threw “Colored” sign off a city bus.
“Whatever you see that needs to be fixed, that’s what you start concentrating on, and find others who feel the same way. You do something! You don’t just sit and say, ‘Well, it’s just me; so, I can’t do anything,’” she once said.
I read about Burks-Brooks in the August 4, 2023 issue of Time magazine.
–Joy