Cora M. Brown 1914–1972

Social worker, lawyer, politician

With her 1952 election to the Michigan State Senate, Cora Brown became the first woman—and the first black woman—elected to a state senate. Furthermore, she was the first female to be elected, rather than appointed to fulfill an unexpired term. A political pioneer, Brown also worked as a social worker and a lawyer.

Brown, the only child of Richard and Alice Brown, was born on April 16, 1914, in Bessemer, Alabama. When Brown was seven years old, her family moved to Detroit, where her father opened a tailor’s shop. In 1931 Brown graduated from Detroit’s Cass Technical High School and enrolled in Nashville’s Fisk University.

During her college years, Brown attempted to help pay expenses by working at a Detroit Urban League summer camp for underprivileged children. Additionally, her mother accepted a job as a cook for a family. Despite these efforts to generate additional income, sometimes Brown had to wear the same dress to her classes and had to wear the same evening gown to all the dances. However, The Negro Politician author Edward T. Clayton characterized Brown’s years at Fisk by her ability to remain “diligent in her pursuit of an education.” Clayton also noted her willingness to battle injustice. After the 1933 lynching in Columbia, Tennessee of a young African American who was accused of attempted rape, Brown participated in a demonstration on the Fisk campus. Members of the community and Fisk faculty attempted unsuccessfully to discourage the demonstration. The Detroit Free Press noted in 1956 that Brown’s involvement in the demonstration marked the debut of her lifelong campaign against “injustice and inhumanity.”

Brown earned her degree in sociology from Fisk in 1935. She then returned to Detroit, where she worked as a social worker for the Old Age Assistance Bureau, the Children’s Aid Society, and the Works Progress Administration (WPA). From 1941 to 1946 Brown worked as a policewoman in the Women’s Division. Here, such assignments as the preparation of legal cases inspired Brown to study law. Brown enrolled in Wayne State University in 1946, receiving a law degree in 1948. She passed the bar examination within two weeks of graduation. She entered the firm of Morris and Brown where she practiced general law and maintained an interest in criminal law. Geraldine Bledsoe, a friend of Brown’s, summarized Brown’s nonpolitical years in the Michigan Chronicle in 1972: “She gave wise counsel, guidance and defense to those continuing to be caught in the confusing maze of the system.”

Brown began her political career by becoming involved in district activities. In 1950 she ran for the state senate in Detroit’s Second District, losing the election by 600 votes. When A. J. Wilkowski was denied his state senate seat in 1951, a special election was called, and Brown campaigned again, only to be defeated by a disc jockey. Then, when Brown ran for the same position again in 1952, she won the Democratic nomination from a field of eight opponents in the primary. She found that during the primary, as she told the Detroit News in 1952, “It wasn’t too hard to sell the women on voting for me. I found there is a little loyalty in our sex.

At a Glance …

Born on April 16, 1914, in Bessemer, AL; daughter of Richard and Alice Brown; died on December 17, 1972, in Detroit, Ml Education: Fisk University, sociology degree, 1935; Wayne State University, law degree, 1948.

Career: Old Age Assistance Bureau, social worker; Children’s Aid Society, social worker; Works Progress Administration (WPA), social worker; Women’s Division, policewoman, 1941-46; Morris and Brown law firm, lawyer; Second District, Detroit Ml, state senator, 1953-57; U.S. Post Office, special associate general counsel, 1957-60; opened law office in Los Angeles; Michigan Employment Security Commission, 1970-72.

Memberships: National Council of Negro Women, Detroit chapter; NAACP; YWCA; Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority; Order of the Eastern Star; Improved Benevolent Order of Elks of the World; New Calvary Baptist Church.

Awards: Outstanding Woman Legislator, 1956.

The men were a little more stand-offish.” Brown’s opponent in the general election was a black man—an assistant city corporation counsel. In November of 1952, Brown’s third bid for a state senate seat was successful. After analyzing the election results, she commented on the role that women voters played in the election to the Detroit News: “These women voters have awakened and they expect their views to be properly represented. Women have always been able to bring sound and humane reasoning into everyday life. I believe they are the hope of the country.”

Before assuming office, Brown stated, as reported by Clayton in The Negro Politician, “I don’t expect much opposition because I am a woman. I haven’t found that too difficult a ‘handicap’ to overcome.” Brown even received several letters from other state senators expressing their delight at the prospect of working with her. During her first term, however, the Detroit News found Brown “seated in lonely feminine determination” among 32 senators. Then, after her second term in office, Brown voiced a different opinion in the Michigan Chronicle, saying in 1958, “I have found sex a greater handicap than ever.”

Brown served two terms in the Michigan state senate, leaving office in 1957. Ebony magazine regarded Brown as an “energetic and able” senator. Brown had no fear of controversy, and she would openly disagree with other blacks. Regardless, the Detroit Free Press noted Brown’s reputation as a “champion of the underprivileged,” and a 1972 issue of the newspaper called her the Michigan Democratic Party’s “perennial thorn in the conscience.”

Throughout her political career, Brown focused on such issues as civil rights, community, education, health, and labor. In 1956 Brown co-introduced a bill with a Republican senator that would revoke or suspend all state and local licenses held by businesses that discriminated on the basis of race. The bill was passed in February of 1956. That same month, Brown, who was selected as the Outstanding Woman Legislator of 1956, accused the First Congressional District incumbent of favoring his Polish constituents at the expense of his black constituents. She then announced her own candidacy for the First District’s Democratic nomination for Congress.

Brown lacked the support of the Democratic Party in her effort to become the United States’ first black congresswoman, and she lost the August election by 6, 491 votes. In October she shocked her Democratic colleagues when she endorsed Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower’s bid for reelection. Brown asserted that her decision was based on civil rights issues. She opposed Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic candidate, because of his support from pro-segregationists. Brown, along with black New York congressman Adam Clayton Powell, urged blacks to vote for Democratic local and state candidates, but for the Republican president.

Eisenhower was reelected, and, according to Clayton in The Negro Politician, “Having relinquished her senatorial post to make a bid for Congress, then defying party leadership to support Eisenhower, she [Brown] now found herself without political office or favor.”

However, the Republicans rewarded her in August of 1957, when Brown was appointed special associate general counsel of the United States Post Office. She was the first black woman to serve on the post office’s legal staff. Brown held the position until 1960, when John F. Kennedy’s election to the presidency returned the Democrats to power.

Next Brown moved to Los Angeles, where she opened a law office. Nearly ten years later, Brown returned to Detroit in 1970. She was appointed to the Michigan Employment Security Commission, becoming the first black woman referee in 35 years. Brown died on December 17, 1972, at Grace Central Hospital in Detroit.