Birmingham Freedom Rider Catherine Burks-Brooks dies at 83

Birmingham Freedom Rider Catherine Burks-Brooks dies at 83

As a young child, she refused to step aside when whites walked past. As an adult, she joined other young people who risked their lives to end segregation in interstate bus travel in the South.

Catherine Burks-Brooks, Birmingham Freedom Rider, dies at 83

By Roy S. Johnson | rjohnson@al.com “Mr. Bull” is what she called him. It’s what Catherine Burks-Brooks called Eugene (Bull) Connor on the morning of May 18, 1961. The segregationist Birmingham Police Commissioner had driven the 21-year-old Birmingham native and nine other young civil rights activists to the Alabama border after the group, all college students in Nashville, ventured to Birmingham to support the Freedom Riders, who encountered v…