Forty three years ago today, on December 2, 1975, Bernard Whitehurst, Jr. was shot and killed by a police officer in the weedy, trash-strewn backyard of an unoccupied house at 546 Holcombe Street in Montgomery, Alabama. Whitehurst was being chased as a suspect in a robbery he did not commit.

In April 2013, a historic marker was erected to commemorate the controversy that followed his death, which is now called the Whitehurst Case.

To learn more about Bernard Whitehurst, Jr. and the Whitehurst Case, read Closed Ranks: The Whitehurst Case in Post-Civil Rights Montgomery.