Tyrone Brooks before going to prison: ‘The movement will continue’
‘I will never let the government stop me from doing what I know to be correct’
Last week, Tyrone Brooks walked into a cell for the 69th time in his life. The former state lawmaker and longtime civil rights activist reported to the federal prison camp in Atlanta to serve one year and one day for fraud.
In 2013, federal investigators accused the 70-year-old of diverting as much as $1 million in donations from labor unions and corporations — cash that was intended to register voters or help children learn to read — on personal expenses. Brooks resigned his Gold Dome seat in April 2015, the day before pleading guilty to one count of tax fraud and no contest to five counts of wire and mail fraud.
Even after pleading guilty, Brooks maintained his innocence and blamed shoddy bookkeeping, leading prosecutors to argue he had not truly accepted responsibility for violating donors’ trust.
Prior to his sentencing last November, Brooks called the federal government’s allegations part of an attempt to silence his decades-long investigation into the Moore’s Ford Bridge lynching, the 1946 unsolved killings in Monroe, Georgia, of four African-American men and women by an angry mob. The activist had held annual reenactments of the lynching at the bridge and continued to gather evidence about the killers. Middle District of Georgia Acting U.S. Attorney G.F. Peterman, III, said through a spokeswoman that he had no comment.
Brooks spoke with Creative Loafing the day before he entered federal prison about any regrets and what will happen with the investigation.
On any regrets:
I don’t regret the work that I’ve been doing all my life. I said to the court when I spoke to U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg that I made mistakes along the way. She acknowledged that in her writing. I told the court that I didn’t have a Certified Public Accountant around me at all times. I should have immediately found one after my previous CPA died. I take full responsibility for what Gov. Roy Barnes who served as Brooks’ lawyer called “sloppy bookkeeping.”
But in no way should this have risen to this level. That’s what is troubling. For me to be singled out, for not having a CPA, I think is atrocious. I certainly admitted it in court. I am not apologizing for Moore’s Ford and all the work I’ve been doing all my life. I will never apologize for being a civil rights worker. I’m absolutely at peace and I’m proud we’ve brought the case this far. At some point we will celebrate getting justice.
On going to prison and speaking out:
I was in federal prison in Lorton, Virginia, in 1968 during the Poor People’s Campaign. I was in solitary confinement for 25 days. Every day we lived on juice and water, no food. And everything we did was planning on fulfilling the Poor People’s Campaign. I was 22 years old and I came out feeling stronger and more determined than ever before to continue doing King and Rev. Ralph David Abernathy’s work. I am sure, whenever I finish my sentence, I will be more committed and dedicated and energized to continue the work that I was called to do.
The sentence is in concrete. The judge has handed down the sentence. That’s over with. But for me to succumb to fear of what the government might do to me, based on me speaking out on Moore’s Ford, I would be contributing to the government’s attack on us. I’m not going to bow down, bend down, break, or fold. They can kill me. I’ll be gone and I won’t be missed. But I will never let the government stop me from doing what I know to be correct. If I did, all of King and Abernathy’s work would be in vain.
On what happens to the lynching investigation while he is in prison:
The movement will continue. Nothing can stop the movement … This movement was launched by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1946. He was only 17 years old. But he was so outraged over the massacre at the Moore’s Ford Bridge. We’ve been planning this for the last five to six years now, knowing the government would try to eliminate me … We have four people in place to carry on this effort. They are committed to carrying on, whether I’m gone a few days, weeks, months, or years.
On what justice looks like for the Moore’s Ford Bridge lynching victims:
Justice would be what I saw in a recent Associated Press story about a 94-year-old Nazi who’s on trial right now over killing innocent Jews. That was 1943 or 1944. Moore’s Ford took place in 1946. If they can still find Nazis who murdered Jews in the Holocaust, why can’t they get Klansmen who murdered in 1946?
The real story of Moore’s Ford has never been told. Justice would be a Moore’s Ford museum in Monroe that would house not only information about the lynching and other lynchings. We think the history of Moore’s Ford has to be corrected so children of today and unborn generations will understand what happened here and also teach us how it will never happen again.
This interview has been edited and condensed.