Binding Us Together: A Civil Rights Activist Reflects on a Lifetime of Community and Public Service

by Alvin Brooks

A heartfelt, inspiring narrative that is inextricably linked to the nation’s past and present, civil rights activist and public servant Alvin Brooks shares engaging, funny, and tragic stories of his life and career of advocacy.

Few have faced adversity like Alvin Brooks has. He was born into an impoverished family, he nearly lost his adoptive father to the justice system of the South, and he barely survived a health crisis in infancy. However, his greatest challenges would be learning how to navigate a racist society as a young boy and then later protecting his beloved wife, Carol, and their six children.

Despite all the adversity he faced, Brooks became a lifelong leader and a servant of his community. Brooks served as one of Kansas City’s first Black police officers in the fifties, helped to heal the racial divide after the riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., founded the AdHoc Group Against Crime, affecting real change in city government, and met with successive American presidents on national issues. When it comes to criminal justice, civil rights, and racial inequity, Brooks’s lifetime of building bridges across society’s divides helps us better understand our past, make sense of our present, and envision our future.

Alvin Brooks proves that a good heart, a generous spirit, and a lot of work can connect the world; one person can make a difference by binding us together.

Genres: Memoir

336 pages, Hardcover

First published February 23, 2021

Reviews

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the autobiography of Alvin Brooks, civil rights activist and public servant, who is well known to those of us who have lived in the Kansas City metro area. He was born in 1932 in Arkansas to a teenage mother and was adopted by a childless neighboring couple. A year later his adoptive parents moved to Kansas City due to a threat to their safety under racist circumstances.

Mr. Brooks grew up in Kansas City during the 1930s and 40s, and some of the most dramatic experiences described in this book come from this era. Brooks is African American, and many of his childhood experiences involve his encounter with overt racism and police brutality.

He and his wife married young, and after a variety of jobs he decided to become a member of the Kansas City Police. Again many of the stories shared of his time as a policeman could serve as the basis for thrilling TV drama. He worked full time as a policeman while going to school part time acquiring both bachelor and master degrees. Again he encountered racism and corruption in both the police force and community.

I thought it was interesting to note that the Black officers were assigned to the districts which were predominately African American. He had grown up in the community and had gone to segregated schools with many of the people he encountered on the streets. As many of the stories were told I got the impression that he knew everybody and everybody knew him. The stories actually impressed me as being examples of good neighborhood policing.

He moved on to an administrative job with the KC School District which is where he was working during the 1968 racial riots in KC. A couple weeks prior to the KC riots Brooks had been part of a public panel discussion in which he had indicated that the KC metro area had all the ingredients that could lead to racial violence. It was not a popular thing to say at the time, but soon after when the riots did occur his comments were remembered.

Those statements of his together with some of his activities on the first days following the death of Martin Luther King were probable reasons why he ended up being hired as the first Black department head in Kansas City government. There was an interesting sequence of instances described in the book of his resumé appearing, disappearing, and reappearing while the City was deciding who to hire to be the director of the Human Relations Department. The story seems to suggest that there must have been ghosts lurking through City Hall with opposing views about whether he should be hired.

He went on to being instrumental in the founding the AdHoc Group Against Crime. He was a City Council representative and Mayor ProTem during Kay Barnes’ mayorship and ran for Mayor in the 2007 City elections losing to Mark Funkhouser.

I listened to the audio edition of this book in which Brooks performs the narration. The sound of his voice is familiar to me, and my being able to listen to his narration was a treat. I could hear him chuckle occasionally in the funny parts. When he described the death of his wife after over sixty years of marriage, I as reader could feel along with him the sadness of the moment. After all, I had just spent the past fifteen hours listening to him tell the story of his life. In the last chapter there was a note from Alvin Brooks' daughter Carrie, and was surprised to hear it read by Carrie herself. These are pluses you don't get reading the printed text.

More than once in the book's narrative Alvin Brooks told of instances when his mother prayed that he would grow up to be the man God wanted him to be. At the end of the book he returned again to that memory:

So Mama, I remember you picking up your Bible and sitting in that old lime green rocking chair with the wooden back and calling me to kneel down and place the side my of my head on your lap. You prayed, "Lord please help my baby become the kind of man you want him to be." So Mama, I pray that I turned out to be the kind of man you prayed to God for me to be.

I'd say that prayer was answered, and Mama's wishes were fulfilled.

I obtained the audio edition of the book via the KCK Library using the Hoopla app.

[Sarah Pesnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book. It was interesting and gave a unique perspective on that period of history. Would definitely recommend.

[Dennis Coday · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must-read for anyone interested in the history of Kansas City, Missouri. An inspiring read for those seeking to build a more just and inclusive society.

[Don Heiman · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 2021 Andrews McMeel Publishing released Alvin L. Brooks’ autobiography “Binding Us Together.” The book features Brooks’ civil rights and community activist career which began with the Kansas City Missouri Police Department. His first police department assignments involved patrolling high crime rate Black and biracial communities. He was next given many complex detective assignments to investigate and after a number of promotions he became the Captain of the Department’s Juvenile Division. He worked with a team of Black Officer Crusaders know as the 3Bs, and with legendary leaders such as Chief of Police Clarence Kelly who later became the director of the FBI. Brooks autobiography also discussed the events which made Alvin an exemplary leader when he was asked to create an anti drug cartel unit and later he was asked to create a unit to shut down inter gang warfare. After leaving the Department, Alvin Brooks was recruited by Kansas City public leaders to create organizational and funding strategies to develop social justice programs, and to create a national Council on Racial Equality (CORE) On January 23, 1990 President H. W. Bush visited with Brooks at Kansas City’s Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church to witness first hand Brook’s Ad Hoc community justice initiative and to personally thank him for his social services leadership. Alvin’s autobiography also discusses his under graduate and graduate degrees in Sociology, his remarkable wife Carol, his children, and his amazing relationships with civic and national private and public sector leaders. Alvin finished the book shortly after he reached 88 years of age. The autobiography is very well written, inspiring, and will always have an honored place in my home’s book library. (P)

[Paula Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book. I've known Mr. Brooks my entire life and his perspectives on the times in history and abundance of situational information are very intriguing.

[Judi]

from Linda Singer