The humble beginnings of local legend Alvin Brooks’ early life and how he became the civil rights icon that he is today have been deftly told and memorialized in a movie by an Oscar winning KU film professor.
The movie “The Heroic True Life Adventures of Alvin Brooks,” based on a book, premiered to two sold out showings at the Screenland Armour Theater in North Kansas City earlier this month, with an additional screening to come at the Free State Festival in Lawrence on June 30, and a showing on KCPT July 11.
Local KU film professor Kevin Willmott, who has worked with Spike Lee and Oliver Stone, wrote the Brooks screenplay and directed the film using the original insight and panache that Willmott’s prestige and creative collaborative work is known for. “Nothing means more to me than this film,” Willmott says. “Alvin Brooks represents the best as an American story.”
Brooks’ stories of his early family life, with a father who was a bootlegger, his harrowing run-ins with the police growing up, his subsequent job as a police officer, and his work in Kansas City to close down crack houses and reduce crime in the inner city are all legendary among civil rights leaders. Brooks’ lifelong battle against racism, injustice and giving a hand to the downtrodden are all themes examined in the book and film. Brooks’ many accomplishments such as creating an ad-hoc group against crime that brought together advocates throughout the area are featured in both the book and movie.
Every city is challenged by racism in various ways, Willmott says. “We just need more Alvin Brooks, and learn from his example. His example is about not turning bitter. When things go wrong, when people discriminate against you and hate on you and attack you—these are all the things that can happen to folks and do happen all the time. Alvin Brooks turned it around in a positive way. It really comes naturally from him. That’s the part that’s really beautiful,” Willmott says.
Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, attending the premier, recalled first hearing about Brooks when he came to Kansas City from Texas in 1973. Cleaver worked as a Methodist church pastor, then later, as a Kansas City councilman, in what would lead to an eight-year stint as the city’s first black mayor in 1991. “I had to spend some time trying to find out who are the movers and shakers in the city. And make no mistake, Alvin Brooks’ name came up at every turn,” Cleaver says.
In the movie, Brooks’ talks about his struggles to do the crime-fighting advocacy work that helped reshape the inner city’s core and move it away from the destructive crack lifestyle that was so prevalent.
Cleaver could identify with that hard work. “Anytime you get to try to do anything significant in this world, you get slapped down, knocked over, beat up,” Cleaver says. “Brooks was raised by people who are not his biological parents. But that did not hold him down. He lived in one of the worst neighborhoods, and he came out of it. He has a grand picture of life. I honor him. If I was in a fight for life or death, I would seek him out at the beginning of the fight.”
What is the take-away from the film? “I want people to just enjoy his life story,” Willmott says. “But more than anything, I think he’s an example of how to live. He’s an example of how to face the problems that we all face, and how to move forward.”
In 1989, Brooks was honored by President George H. W. Bush as one of America’s 1,000 Points of Light, an independent, non-partisan, nonprofit organization to encourage service. Over the years, he earned many other local and national recognitions for his civil rights work.
Now 92 years old, the civil rights icon says that he is an optimist but a realist. “Sometimes my realism overshadows my optimism,” he says. “So I’m hoping and praying that the sources to be become much more conscious of where we are, where we have come from. We’re a great city. Also a great city is inclusive when it represents all the citizens equally. Maybe this film can create conversations and maybe deal with some issues and listen to the voices who are in those areas like the school district that make for a good city.”
