Note: This program originally aired April 9th, 2026.
Before Civil Rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks were household names, a Black man named Hilliard Brooks was shot and killed by a white police officer.
The incident took place after he tried to board a city bus. Thomas Gray, the father of author Karen Gray Houston, was outraged by the unjustifiable shooting. Gray protested, eventually staging a major downtown march to register voters and standing up to police brutality…