Georgia State Representative Tyrone Brooks was born October 10, 1945, in Warrenton, Georgia. Brooks attended public school in Warrenton, and later went to high school in Keysville, Georgia.
Brooks became active in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at the age of fifteen as a volunteer, and by 1967 he was a full-time employee. While there he met such influential leaders as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Joseph Lowery; and the Reverend Ralph David Abernathy. Brooks served in both local and national positions with the SCLC. He was arrested in 1976 in Washington, D.C., while protesting outside the South African Embassy. All told, he has been arrested more than sixty-five times for his civil rights activism. In 1980, Brooks was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, where...