University Breaks Ground on Alvin Brooks Center for Faith-Justice

“Why me, oh Lord?”

It’s a question Alvin Brooks said he has asked himself at different points throughout his life — in trying times and in moments of triumph. And it was one, he said, that he found himself asking again on Friday as Rockhurst University broke ground on a faith-justice center named in his honor. It was only recently that Brooks said he got an answer to the question, coming down the escalator after receiving the 2022 Henry W. Bloch Human Relations Award with his close friend, U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II.

“He said, ‘Congratulations again, most deserved.’ I said, ‘Emanuel, I continue to say God, why me?’ And Emanuel’s response was, ‘Why not you?’”

Faculty, staff, administrators, donors, Brooks’ family and community leaders gathered in what is now the parking lot of the Rockhurst Community Center on Friday to celebrate the groundbreaking for the Alvin Brooks Center for Faith-Justice, a new facility constructed using part of that existing building.

The project was announced in November 2021, as University President Emeritus the Rev. Thomas B. Curran, S.J., received the Henry W. Bloch Human Relations Award at the Jewish Community Relations Bureau|AJC’s annual Human Relations event. Envisioned as a hub for a number of University-related faith-justice efforts and offices for the KC Common Good anti-violence organization, the center will also house a campus chapel. It’s a fitting tribute to Brooks, a living legend in the landscape of social justice, public service and civil rights in Kansas City.

It also reflects the long friendship between its namesake and Fr. Curran, whom Brooks called “my brother, my friend.”

“I don’t mean that lightly,” he said. “Different mother, different father, but my brother, my friend.”

Brooks, 90, has lived most of his life in service to the city of Kansas City. He was among the first Black police officers in Kansas City, Missouri, when he joined the force in 1954. He worked for Kansas City’s public schools, set up City Hall’s first human relations department (becoming the city’s first Black department head), was named assistant city manager, served on the Kansas City Council, and started the Ad-Hoc Group Against Crime, which continues today.

It is a legacy of servant leadership that deserves recognition, said Rockhurst University President Sandra Cassady, Ph.D.

“In his 90 years on this Earth, Mr. Brooks has provided us a powerful example of what genuine love of a community and its people can lead us to do,” she said. “Though he was never a student, faculty or staff member here, Mr. Brooks is a consummate example of servant leadership in the Jesuit tradition. This center, a concrete commitment to a ‘faith that does justice,’ represents being ‘in the city for good’ in every sense. As a space where the campus community will both celebrate faith and pursue justice, it is only appropriate that it bear the name Alvin Brooks.”

Cassady also read a short letter of congratulations from Fr. Curran to Brooks.

“Rockhurst University has followed and learn from your story and legacy,” he wrote. “It is a blessing to now have your name aligned with the story it wishes to tell of a faith that does justice.”