The Thunder of Angels

Featured today on Black America Web, the Thunder of Angels recounts the story of Pfc. Thomas Edwards Brooks, a uniformed black soldier who was killed by a Montgomery police officer five years before the Bus Boycott. His crime was balking at an order to board a bus through a back door.

A basic theme of the story of the USS Mason is that throughout American history, people of African descent have defended America, many times with the assumption that if they proved themselves in the military, then the basic fairness of equal treatment would be a product of that service.

Says the book's co-author Donnie Williams, "This man gave up his life for all of us just as if he were in a war on foreign land. He was a soldier and was willing to give up his life in a war for us. He was also a soldier in another way -- a civil rights soldier -- and he did die for us all."

State Rep. Alvin Holmes of Montgomery is pushing for a statue or marker to be erected as part of the 50th anniversary, which will culminate Dec. 21, the official end of the boycott in 1956.