Booker T. Cooke Jr.

Booker T. Cooke Jr. was a Sacramento City College student and former president of its Black Student Union. He helped organize a breakfast program for children and planned to study sociology. In May 1970 he was jailed in the Oak Park Four prosecution over police officer Bernard Bennett’s death. The case drew a community defense campaign challenging the evidence and the treatment of Black activists. The murder and conspiracy charges were dismissed in January 1971, and Cooke and his co-defendants were freed.