"Award-winning broadcast journalist Karen Gray Houston tells the story of the key roles played by her father, Thomas Gray, and her uncle, Fred D. Gray, in the historic Montgomery bus boycott, the action that kick-started the civil rights movement"-- In 1950, a Negro man named Hilliard Brooks was shot and killed by a white police officer in a confrontation after he tried to board a Montgomery city bus. Thomas Gray, who had played football with Brooks when they were kids, was outraged by the unjustifiable shooting. Gray protested, eventually staging a major downtown march to register voters, and standing up to police brutality. Five years later he led another protest alongside his brother, Fred D. Gray, the young lawyer who represented Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Claudette Colvin, a plaintiff in the case that forced Alabama to desegregate its buses. Houston examines how her father's and uncle's selfless actions changed the nation's racial climate and opened doors for her and countless other African Americans. -- adapted from jacket. Provided by publisher.

Foreword / by Fred D. Gray -- Introduction -- Hilliard Brooks -- Road trip -- Veterans protest -- Uncle Teddy: to destroy everything segregated -- The brothers Gray: the early years -- Rediscovering Montgomery -- Lunch with Rosa -- Who was Rosa, really? -- The KKK chapter -- Claudette Colvin, teenage pioneer -- Boycott: day one -- Ray Whatley -- King Parsonage bombing -- The arrests -- White allies -- Radio days -- The movement wedding -- MLK and the barber -- The police chief's daughter -- The bus manager and his family -- Ann Carmichael -- The help -- World War II -- Displaced refugees -- Cleveland -- Justice delayed -- The wake -- Lasting legacy.