Stories of a movement: Cocoa Brown to emcee Rosa Parks Gala on Saturday

As a comic, writer and actor in TV and film, Cocoa Brown’s life is full of stories. But some of the best — or worst — are from her childhood.

The Newport News, Virginia native — with current roles on Fox’s “9-1-1” and Netflix’s “Never Have I Ever" — grew up on tales of the civil rights movement. That includes how around 40,000 Black riders came together in 1955 Montgomery and faced additional hardships and threats for more than a year to end segregation on city buses.

“I consider myself pretty privileged because I was able to get first-hand stories and knowledge from people who had actually lived it,” said Brown, who will emcee the Rosa L. Parks Awards Gala in Montgomery on Saturday. “It wasn’t coming from, ‘I heard.’ My grandmothers, my aunts and uncles and my parents were living during the time… I had my great-grandmother until I was about 10. This is a woman who her parents were slaves.”

Two of those voices were recently lost to Brown — both her father and mother died in the past 12 months. Brown, who has a pre-teen son, said her parents' deaths were a wake-up call. She's been "living out loud" ever since in their honor.

“They went through their teenage years, their younger years dealing with segregation, being in the back of the bus and drinking out of separate water fountains. Going to separate schools,” Brown said.

What moves Brown the most about tales of the Montgomery Bus Boycott is how an entire community stood together to get what they deserved.

“It’s something we could use right now in this country,” Brown said. “If we could just stand together.”

It’s a heavy, difficult subject, even 67 years after Rosa Parks’ arrest and the start of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. As Saturday’s emcee, Brown said part of her job is to keep the atmosphere a little loose.

“As a stand-up comedian, I have the ability to take some things that are very serious, add a little humor, and still keep you thinking and wondering,” Brown said.

Held by the Southern Youth Leadership Development, the formal gala is from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Renaissance Montgomery Hotel & Spa at the Convention Center. Tickets are $250 and can be purchased online at https://syldi.org.

“People can expect to have a great time," Brown said. "They’re going to laugh. They’re going to think. They’re going to reminisce. They’re going to relate. I just hope they walk away and say, wow, that was a really great and fun, insightful event.”

The last time Brown was in Montgomery was more than a decade ago, performing with Cedric the Entertainer. She said she could feel the city’s history then.

“It kind of pulsates in the soil in Montgomery,” Brown said. “When you’re walking around, you’re surrounded by such history.”

Since then, the city's civil rights tourism has grown to include the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice.

“Someone did ask me if I wanted to do a quick tour, and I said, absolutely,” Brown said.

The opportunity to be a part of the Montgomery Bus Boycott’s 67th-anniversary celebration means a lot to Brown — not just for her part as emcee, but to see everyone come together to honor the work and sacrifices made just decades ago. Brown said it shows people haven’t forgotten the stories of where they came from.

Reflecting on Black women of the movement

In Brown's own life, she sees the effects of fellow Black women who paved the way for change. Many of them were largely unrecognized for their efforts. Much of the boycott and general civil rights movement attention would be attributed to the works of men like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

“We don’t talk about the women that were behind the men, who kept them strong and were their backbone and encouragement,” Brown said.

Of course we know of the humble Montgomery seamstress, Rosa Parks, who on Dec. 1, 1955, was arrested for not obeying the white bus driver’s orders to move to the back of the bus. Parks' arrest sparked the boycott, but there were many others who lit the way and fought for rights during and afterward.

“It was that time. It was (Parks') time,” Brown said. “But let’s just keep it real. This was a male-dominated country.”

• On March 2, 1955, 15-year-old pregnant Claudette Colvin was arrested for not moving from her seat on a bus. A month later, Aurelia Browder was arrested for the same thing. While the Boycott would wait for Parks in December, Colvin and Browder were two of five plaintiffs — with Susie McDonald, Jeanetta Reese and Mary Louise Smith — in a 1956 lawsuit filed by Montgomery Improvement Association attorney Fred Gray. With Browder as the lead plaintiff, the case Browder v. Gayle (Montgomery Mayor William A. Gayle) claimed all five had been victims of discrimination on city buses. Intimidation from the white community prompted Reese to withdraw from the case, but judges sided with the plaintiffs that the city's segregation law had violated the Fourteenth Amendment. That decision was upheld by the U.S Supreme Court.

• Because social media didn't exist, the boycott itself was organized by Jo Ann Robinson, president of the Women’s Political Council, through a call to action on thousands of flyers.

• As the boycott continued and people risked their lives and reputations running carpools, the movement needed food and money. Stepping in to help with both was Georgia Gilmore, a cook who fed the movement’s foot soldiers from her home and helped fund it.

These are just a few of the mostly unsung Black women of the movement, without whom civil rights efforts would have failed.

“I love that we never forgot about the women who were part of the movement,” Brown said. “They were in those trenches with those men. They were marching. They were making sure that the children were taken care of, and that the men were taken care of."

More about Cocoa Brown

With credits that stretch back to 2003 and roles in huge shows like "E.R.", "Breaking Bad", "Victorious", "2 Broke Girls," "For Better or Worse," "American Crime Story", "9-1-1", "P-Valley", and "Never Have I Ever" — plus film roles in hits like "Lakeview Terrace", "Lethal Procedures", "His, Hers, and the Truth", "Ted 2" and Tyler Perry's "The Single Moms Club" — Brown considers herself fortunate and blessed. She's also a really, really funny, award-winning comedian known by fans as "The Truth?"

“As a stand-up comedian, you have to find humor in some of the most tumultuous things, some of the most painful things,” Brown said. “Being a comedian of color, I will turn over rocks that were placed upon us, and expose what’s under those rocks in a humorous way. Absolutely, I bring up stuff like that.”

She's been called a "comedy machine gun" by "America's Got Talent" judge Sharon Osbourne, and Brown isn't afraid to take aim at politics. An example: Georgia’s upcoming Senate runoff election between incumbent Raphael Warnock and football legend Herschel Walker.

“You can’t help but talk about a man (Walker) who brings up vampires and werewolves,” Brown said. “That’s just material that writes itself.”

Montgomery Advertiser reporter Shannon Heupel covers things to do in the River Region. Contact him at sheupel@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Stories of a movement: Cocoa Brown emcees Rosa Parks Gala on Saturday