Jimmy Lee Bruce Jr
In 1986, Jimmie Lee Bruce Jr., 20, was home from college for winter break and went to the movies in Walkill, N.Y., with friends. He was killed by a white police officer, moonlighting as a security guard, who put him in a chokehold in the parking lot. His mother, Maude Bruce, 75, was the president of the Ellenville, N.Y., chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. She said that at the time there were rallies for her son outside the police station, and in Albany, where the governor acceded to demands to appoint a special prosecutor. Two grand juries declined to indict the officer, she said. Ms. Bruce said there was no chance the case would be reopened. But recently, she listened as the assemblyman who represented her at the time testified in Albany in favor of a bill to ban chokeholds, which passed and was signed into law. “He said Jimmie Lee Bruce Jr. didn’t die in vain,” she said, “because 36 years later, we are here.”