Charles Brooks only had to look at Arlillian Kate Bushelon to know how she was feeling. Funeral directors are called to tend to the bereaved, to comfort those grieving, to hold those in pain. Brooks began working in the Bushelon Funeral Home in 1980 after years as a director at Poole’s Funeral Chapels.

There, he took on the added duty of helping with Kate and her brother Aubrey Jason, whose parents, Aubrey and LeVoria, owned Bushelon.

“He taught us all the tricks of the trade and always gave wise wisdom,” Kate shared with me. “He was there to celebrate every milestone in my life, including being licensed as a funeral director and embalmer. He could look at me, yeah, and know if I was OK or not.”

Before joining Bushelon, Brooks handled two of Birmingham’s most tragic homegoings: In September 1963, he served as director at the funeral of three of the four young girls killed in the KKK bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church. Then in 1979, he handled the funeral of 20-year-old Bonita Carter, who was killed by Birmingham policeman George Sands, an event that changed the trajectory of politics in the city.

On Saturday, Birmingham lost a quiet dignified part of its history when Brooks died at UAB Hospital, Kate Bushelon confirmed. He was 79.

“He has directed the services of pastors, community leaders, athletes, and many others who have made significant contributions to the fabric of Birmingham and beyond,” Kate Bushelon said.

I wrote a column about Brooks in 2020 in conjunction with the release of the podcast Unjustifiable, which I co-hosted with my colleague John Archibald. Read the column here.

“Mr. Brooks, the epitome of a funeral director, was a gentleman, kindhearted, and a devout man of God,” Kate Bushelon said. “He served thousands of bereaved families. He was also a mentor and teacher to funeral directors and funeral attendants in Alabama and beyond. His mother was one of the first licensed embalmers in Alabama.”

When I spoke with Brooks in 2020, he recalled the Saturday of Carter’s funeral as an “ordinary day.”

He drove the Cadillac that picked up Carter’s family in the Smithfield housing community, including her father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. John Carter, Jr. Behind them was the hearse carrying the young girl’s remains.

“It was tears, it was emotional,” he said. “Other than that, everything went real smooth.”

Carter’s death was the final indignation for a city not yet healed from the racial trauma of its past. A city where police, still infected by the virus that was the man who built it, Eugene “Bull” Connor, regularly shot Black people, often in the back as they were running away. Shootings almost always deemed justifiable.

By the end of that year, Birmingham — still, as Martin Luther King Jr. once labeled it, perhaps the most segregated city in America —elected its first African-American mayor.

In 1963, Brooks also served as director for the funeral of Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair and Cynthia Wesley, three of the four young girls murdered by the Klan in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. [Carole Robertson, the fourth girl killed in the bombing, was funeralized separately.]

“That day was real different,” Brooks recalls, “due to the circumstances. There were a bit more people than usual.”

The funeral was held at Sixth Avenue Baptist Church, one of the few Black houses of worship large enough to accommodate the more than eight thousand mourners who attended.

On the wall at Bushelon hangs a photo from that day. It shows several men loading one of the small caskets into a hearse; Brooks, a very young Brooks, is at its foot, at the far right in the image.

“His presence in my life and the legacy of the Bushelon funeral home’s family and staff spans as long as I can remember,” added Kate Bushelon. “He raised my generation of the Bushelon family. After losing my father in 2013, he became the best father figure I could have ever asked for. He was faithful to my family and made it abundantly clear that he loved us.

“The loyalty he devoted to us will never be forgotten.”

Hear the story of Bonita Carter on #Unjustifiable from Reckon Radio: https://podcasts.apple.com/…/reckon-radio/id1420215603

Let’s be better tomorrow than we are today. My column appears on AL.com, and digital editions of The Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, and Mobile Press-Register. Tell me what you think at [email protected], and follow me at twitter.com/roysj, Instagram @roysj and BlueSky.