In the mid-1960s, a few months before The Black Panthers were founded in California, The Brothers formed in Albany, and made huge strides for civil rights in the area and beyond.

Earl Thorpe is one of the founding members of The Brothers who paved the way for people of color in Albany.Now 84, he's relearning how to walk again.

"My life is good now. I just wanna get out of here and be able to walk,” said Thorpe.

Confident he'll be back on his feet soon, Thorpe is walking history.

His fight for civil rights began in the spring of 1966 in Albany's South End neighborhood.

"The problems we were seeing were there was no trash removal, street lights were bad, bad housing, roach-infected housing,” said Thorpe.

And unemployment. Skilled, qualified Black men were being passed up for construction jobs at SUNY Albany's new upstate campus and what would become the Empire State Plaza.

The construction sites became ground zero for labor rights demonstrations.

Seeing they could make a difference, Thorpe and a small group of his neighbors met at Trinity Place and officially formed The Brothers.

"The Brothers was Black men that was fighting for jobs, better jobs, better schools, better housing for their families, and we were like 50 strong,” said Thorpe.

Creating change peacefully took some creativity.

"It was decided that we wasn't violent, but we wasn't going to turn the other cheek,” said Thorpe.

Their first order of business: cleaning up the streets.

"We were seeing trash everywhere,” said Thorpe.

The South End and Arbor Hill were littered with garbage, some of it dumped there by outsiders. Renters couldn't afford expensive, private trash pickup.

The Brothers rounded up as many bags of trash as they could and took them to city hall.

"Who's at city hall? The mayor. You get attention. Somebody's got to do something,” said Thorpe. “It worked. We ended up with trash removal."

That was the summer of 1966. The next injustice they tackled: politicians buying votes.

"What they would do with Black people and white people, they would give them $5 to vote,” said Thorpe. “They would buy your vote, so they swayed any way they wanted you to go."

The Brothers took to polling places on Election Day.

"Ben Becker called me and said, ‘Mr. Thorpe, if you picket today, you're going to jail.’ And I said, ‘I anticipate going to jail.’ Every time I picketed, I anticipated going to jail,” said Thorpe.

Thorpe doesn’t know exactly how many times he was taken to jail, but estimates it was around 15. It never stopped him from his activism.

"They would ask me what am I fighting for? I said, 'my people,' ” said Thorpe. “I'm fighting for betterment of my people.”

The Albany County district attorney threatened to prosecute anyone involved. Fearing arrests, vote-buying ended.

Fast-forward to the following year: As race conflicts rose throughout the country, The Brothers served as mediators. In July 1967, a police car almost hit a Black woman pushing a baby carriage. In response, riots broke out on the block behind The Palace Theatre.

The Brothers are credited with calming the crowd.

"Just remember that we had a fight and we fought it, and we did the best we could with what we had to work with at that time,” said Thorpe.

The group disbanded in 1971.

With five children to raise, Thorpe’s focus shifted to family.

"It's somebody else's turn,” said Thorpe. “Somebody told me, 'my dad told me what you did!' Yeah, well, what are you doing? The fight still exists."