Brooks, Corrinne Mudd

Corrinne Mudd Brooks organized the first African American girl scout troop in Fort Wayne, IN. The history of African American girl scout units has not been thoroughly researched, and it is not known how many units existed in the U.S. Up to the 1950s, girl scouts were segregated by race. In the state of Indiana, the first girl scouts were formed in New Albany in 1919; the organization became a council in 1923.

Corrinne Brooks was an active member of the Limberlost Girl Scout Council as well as a member of the Urban League, the Commission on the Status of Women for the State of Indiana, and the YWCA. She was also the comptroller at the YWCA.

Corrinne Brooks was the wife of James W. Brooks. She was born in Louisville, KY, the daughter of Bessie Loretta Douglas Mudd (1897-1928), who was born in Fort Wayne, IN, and James Mudd (1881-1968), who was born in Springfield, KY. The family moved from Kentucky to Fort Wayne in 1915 and lived on Wallace Street, according to the 1920 U.S. Federal Census.

When Corrinne's mother died, Corrinne became the mother of the household; she was the oldest of her six siblings. She was also an athlete, the first girl in her high school to receive a sweater for her participation in basketball and soccer. She graduated from Central High School in 1933. She won the Civic Men's Scholarship, which was used for her courses at Indiana University Extension, located in downtown Fort Wayne. She was hired at the Fort Wayne Jewish Federation, Inc. as a secretary and remained with the organization for several years.

Corrinnee Brooks was also a political activist, and she took a turn at politics: she was an unsuccessful candidate for the Indiana House of Representative in 1954 and 1956, going on to become a coordinator for the Indiana voter registration drive in preparation for the 1960 presidential election, helping to register over 43,000 voters. Senator John F. Kennedy invited her to a National Conference on Constitutional Rights and American Freedom in New York. Brooks was also founder of the Martin Luther King Living Memorial.

For more on Corrinne Brooks, see her entry in The Black Women in the Middle West Project, by D. C. Hine, et al.; and "Corrinne Brooks always active in helping others," The Journal Gazette, 2/06/1996, People section. A picture of Corrine Brooks is on p. 120 in Ebony, 9/1983, first row, 4th from the left [available in Google Books].

For more on the girl scouts see the Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana website; and for a more detailed accounting of African American girl scout history, see the "Josephine Groves Holloway" entry in Notable Black American Women, by J. C. Smith.