George Leslie Brown

1926-2006

Politician, journalist, business executive

George Leslie Brown's election as Colorado's lieutenant governor in 1974 made him the first black lieutenant governor in the 20th century, yet that pioneering achievement was only one among many in his esteemed career. Brown was appointed to a vacant seat in the Colorado House of Representatives in 1955 and then elected to five consecutive terms in the state Senate starting in 1956—he was the first black to serve as a senator in the state. He was also the first African American to work as an editor at a major daily newspaper in the Rocky Mountain region. And when he joined the Grumman Aerospace Corporation in 1979 he became the first black corporate officer in a major U.S. aerospace firm.

Started in Journalism

Brown was born in Lawrence, Kansas, on July 1, 1926. When he was one year old, his family moved to Kansas City, where his two sisters, Harriet and Laura, were born. The family moved back to Kansas—to his grandparents' farm in North Lawrence—when he turned five, and he lived there until his graduation from high school. A star athlete at Liberty Memorial High School, he excelled in football, baseball, and track. Immediately after graduation in 1944, he enlisted as a flight cadet in the Tuskegee Airmen, a black, Alabama-based unit of the Army Air Force. After the war he entered the University of Kansas, intending to study engineering. When he learned that it was nearly impossible for blacks to get jobs as engineers, he switched to journalism, and in 1950 he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in that field.

Brown was to become prominent in journalism, politics, and business, but he made his mark first as a journalist. He had chosen journalism as his major because black reporters were in demand at the time to cover black-related issues. Upon graduation he received 17 job offers, and he accepted a position as a reporter with the Denver Post. He subsequently rose to the position of night city editor at the paper, becoming the first black editor at a major Rocky Mountain daily. During the same period he was also hosting a local radio talk show and teaching at the University of Colorado and the University of Denver. In 1959 he was named a King Fellow at the Colorado School of Journalism. In 1962 the U.S. State Department selected him as one of a group of journalists that was sent on a tour of Europe and 14 African countries to conduct seminars on journalism and communications. In an oral history recorded in 1973 by Juanita Gray and James Davis, held in the Collaborative Digitization Program, Brown recalled, "We spent most of the [tour] in Africa working with journalists, trying to establish a freer press in countries that up to that point had government-controlled press," He left the newspaper business in 1965. The University of Kansas's School of Journalism and Mass Communications formally recognized his achievements in 1976 with the inauguration of the George Brown Urban Journalism Scholarship. In 2003 the University awarded him its Distinguished Service Citation.

Long Career in Public Office

Brown also distinguished himself in politics and public service, beginning in 1955 when Colorado's Democratic Party appointed him to the state's House of Representatives to fill the seat vacated by Elvin Caldwell after his election to the Denver City Council. Brown, who had worked on Caldwell's campaign as a speechwriter, served in the House for a year and a half. In 1956 he made a successful bid for the state Senate, becoming Colorado's first African-American senator. He served in the Senate for five consecutive terms, during which he co-sponsored far-reaching civil rights laws on issues including fair housing, open records, fair employment, and prison work release. A particular source of pride for him was the central role he played in repealing the state's miscegenation laws, which forbade blacks and Chicanos from marrying whites. Of his time in the Senate, Brown said in his oral history, "I wouldn't trade [it] for anything in the world. It's been an education. It's been frustrating. I had to learn to compromise, which is one of the hardest things for me. It became easier when I realized that I didn't have to compromise past my line of conviction, and I don't think I ever have."

A significant portion of Brown's life in public service saw him as the leader or a member of a number of committees, boards, and government agencies. From 1965 to 1969, he was the assistant director of Denver's Housing Authority. During his tenure he helped to craft programs for senior-citizen health and youth recreation and supervised the creation of family housing developments and community centers. In 1969 he served as executive director of the Metro Denver Urban Coalition, in which capacity he brought members of the minority community together with representatives from business, education, religion, and the media to devise new approaches to social problems. Much of Brown's public-service work was directed at young people. He told Juanita Gray and James Davis, "It's been said many times that the future of the world is in our young. But that future doesn't necessarily have to be good unless you've worked with young people and helped them see the need for constructive change, the need for active participation. And I don't think you can do that except by demonstration." To support these convictions, Brown served in the Denver Citizens' Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and the White House Conference on Youth, and he also sat on the boards of trustees for such groups such as 4H and the Boys and Girls Choir of Harlem.

At a Glance …

Born on July 1, 1926, in Lawrence KS; died on March 31, 2006, in Boca Raton, FL; married Modeen Broughton, 1978; children: Gail, Cindy, Kim, Laura. Education: University of Kansas, BS, journalism, 1950; Harvard Business School, University of Colorado, and University of Denver, graduate studies.

Career: Denver Post, Denver, Colorado, writer and editor, 1950-65; Colorado House of Representatives, representative, 1955-56; Colorado State Senate, senator, 1956-75; State of Colorado, lieutenant governor, 1975-79; Grumman Ecosystems, vice president of marketing, 1979; Grumman Energy Systems, senior vice president of business development; Grumman Aerospace, chief Washington lobbyist, 1981-90; various positions with Prudential Securities, Greenwich Partners, L. Robert Kimball Associates, and Whitten & Diamond.

Memberships: 4H Board of Trustees; Board of Trustees of Davis and Elkins College; Board of Trustees of the World Trade Center, Washington; Democratic National Committee; Denver Citizen's Committee on Juvenile Delinquency; Executive Committee of the SW Regional Council of the National Association of Housing and redevelopment Officials; Governor's Coordinating Committee on Implementation of Mental Health and Mental Retardation Planning; Harlem Boys and Girls Choir Board of Trustees; the National Panel of the National Academy of Public Administration Foundation Neighborhood-Oriented Metro-Government Study; National Policy Council of the U.S. Department of HEW; National Task Force for Secondary Education Reform; Nutrition Advisory Board for the Colorado Social Services Department.

Awards: Colorado Black Caucus, Achievement Award, 1972; Colorado School of Journalism, King Fellow, 1959; Congressional Black Caucus, Adam Clayton Powell Award for Political Achievement, 1975; Kappa Alpha Psi, Achievement Award, 1974; NAACP (Denver Metro branch), Exceptional Man Award, 1972.

Brown ran for Lieutenant Governor in 1974 as the running mate of Richard Lamm. He had been approached in the two previous elections about the possibility of running for lieutenant governor, but on those occasions he didn't think that Colorado was ready for a black gubernatorial candidate. Lamm's campaign was successful, and in 1975 Brown was sworn in as the first black lieutenant governor of the 20th century. His term was marked by controversies that may have undermined his long-term political prospects. While Lamm was on vacation, for instance, Brown pardoned a convicted murderer named Sylvester Lee Garrison, who had been a friend of Brown's. When Lamm returned to work, he rescinded the pardon. Lamm later withheld some of Brown's pay because Brown had overspent his budget. One episode in particular spurred a flurry of negative publicity. At a speech before the 1975 National Lieutenant Governors Conference in Alabama, Brown claimed that during his Tuskegee Airmen days, he had crash landed in an Alabama field. He said that a farmer found him and branded a letter "K" onto his chest, possibly a reference to the Ku Klux Klan. It was soon revealed, however, that the brand was actually from Brown's Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. The story got plenty of play in the local press, and there were calls for his ouster. Lamm dropped Brown from the ticket in his 1978 re-election campaign. In 1980, Brown sued for $500,000 in back pay and was awarded $10,000.

Left Elected Office for Industry

Brown spent the remainder of his life primarily in the business arena. In 1979 was hired by the Grumman Corporation, making him the first black executive in a major aerospace firm. He served in a number of roles in various Grumman divisions: In 1979 he was named vice president of marketing at Grumman Ecosystems, and from 1979 to 1981 he served as senior vice president of business development at Grumman Energy Systems. In 1981, following his completion of Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program, he was appointed Grumman's chief lobbyist in Washington, D.C., a position he held until 1990. He left Grumman in 1990, and went to work for a variety of firms, including the law firm Whitten & Diamond, Prudential Securities' public finance office, the architectural/engineering outfit L. Robert Kimball Associates, and the public finance firm Greenwich Partners. Even while immersed in the business world, Brown remained active in civil rights, a commitment that led Ebony magazine in the late 1990s to name him one of America's 100 most influential African Americans. Just weeks before his death he co-chaired the National Black People's Unity Convention in Gary, Indiana. He had also co-chaired a similar meeting in Gary in 1972 that was credited with increasing the role of blacks in the Democratic Party.

In his 1973 oral history, Brown reflected on his time in the Senate, and he summarized those years in a way that could stand as a declaration of his life's mission. "I want to find ways to work…for my people," he said. "When I say that, I want everybody to understand that, yes, I have a priority on black people, but I include all people when I say, ‘I want to work for my people.’" Brown died of cancer in Boca Raton, Florida, on March 31, 2006.

Sources

Books

Who's Who Among African Americans, 19th ed., Gale, 2006

Periodicals

Denver Westword, April 1, 1999.

Indianapolis Recorder, August 16, 2005.

Jet, April 24, 2006, p. 17.

Los Angeles Times, April 5, 2006, p. B9.

New York Times, April 6, 2006, p. 23.

State News, May 2006, p. 23.

Washington Post, April 7, 2006, p. B6.

On-line

"Brown, George L.," Black Past.org: Remembered and Reclaimed,www.blackpast.org/?q=aaw/brown-george-l-1926-2005 (July 31, 2007).

"Colorado Lieutenant Governors," Colorado State Archives,www.colorado.gov/dpa/doit/archives/offic/ltgov.html (July 31, 2007).

"Death of George Brown, KU Distinguished Service Citation Recipient," Monday Memo: William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications,www.journalism.ku.edu/faculty/mondaymemos/spring06/4-3-06%20Monday%20Memo.pdf (July 31, 2007).

"Eight Elected to National 4-H Council Board of Trustees," Clover Corner News,http://4hblogs.org/ccn/archives/2004/04/index.html (July 31, 2007).

"Former Lieutenant Governor George Brown Dies," CoGen Blogwww.cogenblog.com/index.php?s=george+l.+brown (July 31, 2007).

"George L. Brown Biography," HistoryMakers, www.thehistorymakers.com/biography/biography.asp?bioindex=389&category=PoliticalMakers&occupation=Political%20Leader&name=George%20L.%20Brown (July 31, 2007).

"George L. Brown 1926-2006 Boca Raton," LJWorld.Com,www2.ljworld.com/obits/2006/apr/11/george_brown/ (July 31, 2007).

"George L. Brown: Oral History," Collaborative Digitization Program,www.cdpheritage.org/streaming/index.cfm?filename=DPL-OH47.tape1.sideA (July 31, 2007).

"George L. Brown: Oral History," Collaborative Digitization Program,www.cdpheritage.org/streaming/index.cfm?filename=DPL-OH47.tape1.sideB (July 31, 2007).

"George L. Brown: Oral History," Collaborative Digitization Program,www.cdpheritage.org/streaming/index.cfm?filename=DPL-OH47.tape2.sideA (July 31, 2007).

"Isaac E. Moore, Jr. Papers," Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library: Denver Public Library,http://aarl.denverlibrary.org/archives/imoore.html (July 31, 2007).

"Leaders in Service to Receive Honors on Commencement Weekend," Kansas University Connection,www.kuconnection.org/2003apr/people_1.asp (July 31, 2007).