Location: Montgomery, Alabama
Age: 22
Year: 1950
Hilliard Brooks, 22, was a WWII veteran who was killed in 1950 by police officer M. E. Mills in Montgomery, Alabama.
Brooks boarded a city bus and refused to re-enter in the rear of the vehicle after paying his fare at the front. This angered the driver and he subsequently summoned officer Mills, who was patrolling nearby.
Mills shot Brooks and the young man died a day later from the injury.
For more information, search CRRJ’s archive.
Read more about Brooks’ death on the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive
About the Archive
The Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive houses case files and documents for more than 1,000 cases of racial homicides in the Jim Crow South. Co-founded by Melissa Nobles, professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Margaret Burnham, CRRJ director and professor of law at Northeastern, these uncovered stories highlight how violence affected lives, defined legal rights and shaped politics between 1930 and 1954.