Charles Brooks, a longtime Birmingham funeral director who handled services for young victims killed in two high-profile Civil Rights incidents in the city, died Saturday at UAB Hospital. He was 79.
Arlillian Kate Bushelon, director and manager of Bushelon Funeral Home in the West End, where Brooks had worked since 1980, said he had been battling cancer for years.
“He made an impact on people at the lowest part of their life,” she said. “He’s been a pillar of strength in Birmingham and beyond.”
Bushelon said Brooks was “like family,” and had mentored a generation in how to care for a deceased person’s grieving loved ones with dignity and grace. His mother, she said, was one of the first licensed Black women embalmers in Alabama, which she suspects is how Brooks came to have an affinity for funeral service.
On two occasions separated by over a decade, Brooks provided funeral services for young Birmingham women whose lives were cut short by racially motivated violence. Brooks spoke with AL.com’s Roy S. Johnson in 2020 about those two days: June 20, 1979, when he buried Bonita Carter, an innocent Black woman shot by a white police officer; and Sept. 18, 1963, when he buried Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, and Cynthia Wesley, killed in the Klan bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church.
Bushelon Funeral Home will be handling the arrangements. Services have not yet been set.
