Brown, Zora Kramer 1949—

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Zora Kramer Brown 1949—

Cancer awareness activist

A Family Tendency Towards Breast Cancer

Yesterday and Today: Career Moves and Cancer

An Urgent Purpose

The Breast Cancer Resource Committee

Once a Year For a Lifetime

Creating Public Awareness

Rise-Sister-Rise

Sources

In the 15 years following her mastectomy Zora Brown has accomplished a great deal. She began by speaking at her own and other local churches about her own family’s experience. Then, gathering momentum, she started keeping track of the latest advances in cancer research, and was appalled to learn from the National Cancer Institute that mortality rates for black victims had risen 13 percent since 1974, while white women under the age of 50 had seen an 11 percent decline. These alarming figures galvanized her into setting up the Washington, D. C.-based Breast Cancer Resource Committee, a dedicated organization which vows to lower the African American mortality rate by 50 percent the end of the century.

Zora Kramer Brown was three years old when her parents were divorced. The youngest of eight children, she suffered little deprivation as a result of the breakup. “I was spoiled rotten,” was the memory those years left behind. Her mother, on the other hand, had to shoulder the hefty challenge of bringing up eight children on her own. But Helen Brown never bemoaned her fate. Instead, she found it more productive to develop a philosophy that would help her family to cope. “If you see a problem and don’t seek a solution, you have no right to complain,” was the principle by which she lived.

A Family Tendency Towards Breast Cancer

Helen Brown’s creed proved to be a literal lifesaver when the family’s genetic tendency towards breast cancer revealed itself. Though mastectomies became a depressing routine after biopsies uncovered malignancies in Zora’s grandmother, her mother, then sister after sister, the ingrained habit of dealing promptly with problems sent each patient to a gynecologist as soon as she felt a telltale lump. In most cases, this swift response was rewarded. Zora’s grandmother lived to be 94 years old, as of 1996 her mother was 81, and two of her three sisters managed to recover from cancer. Only her late sister Belva “was not fortunate,” as Zora puts it, having lost her 12-year battle in 1990.

Mindful of her family’s dismal health record, Zora learned early to keep a vigilant eye on her own body. She checked for changes often, examined her breasts regularly, and stuck resolutely to a macrobiotic diet.

At a Glance. . .

Born March 20, 1949, in Holdenville, OK; daughter of Willie and Helen Brown. Education: Oklahoma State University, B.S, 1969.

Career: Secretary, Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association, 1969–70; secretary, Ford Motor Company, 1970–76; administrative assistant, The White House, 1976–77; staff assistant to U.S. House Majority Leader, U.S. House of Representatives, 1977; assistant director for public affairs, Federal Communications Commission, 1977–86; public affairs director, Broadcast Capital Fund, 1989–91 chairperson, Breast Cancer Resource Committee, 1989-, Member of National Cancer Advisory Board, 1991–98, President’s Cancer Panel, Special Commission on Breast Cancer, 1992–94, District of Columbia Cancer Consortium, 1989-; board member of Breast Institute, Philadelphia, PA, 1992.

Awards; Marilyn Trish Robinson Community Service Award, Washington Association of Black Journalists, 1992; Community Service Award, Susan G. Komen Foundation, 1992; Cancer Control Service Award, National Cancer Institute, 1991; Breast Awareness Award, National Women’s Health Resource Center, 1992; Gretchen Post Award, 1993; Citation, U.S. Senate, November, 1995.

Then, reasoning that there was little more she could do to control the future, she tried not to let her fear of contracting cancer stand in the way of normal life.

Yesterday and Today: Career Moves and Cancer

She graduated from Oklahoma State in 1969 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, then obtained a job as a secretary at the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association. Next came a switch to the Ford Motor Company, where a six-year stint in the lobbying office taught her a great deal about the art of public communication.

In early 1976 Brown took an administrative assistant’s post at the White House. The office to which she was assigned was concerned with women’s programs, at a time of frantic nationwide efforts to find the necessary 38-state ratification for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) before its 1978 deadline. Brown’s lobbying experience plus various assorted Washington internships had given her valuable knowledge of Capitol Hill bureaucracy, so she was unfazed by the prospect of working with the numerous women’s groups invited to participate by First Lady Betty Ford, a staunch ERA supporter. The ERA deadline was ultimately extended to 1982, long after the Carters succeeded the Fords in the White House. Nevertheless, though the working relationship between Betty Ford and Zora Brown was ostensibly over, the acquaintance left an important connection between the two women.

The unlikely tie was too close a knowledge of breast cancer. But while Betty Ford’s diagnosis of malignancy had ended with a mastectomy in 1974, Brown’s own moment of truth did not arrive until 1981, when she had been married exactly one year. The long-dreaded symptom, a hard lump, was discovered during a breast self-examination. “It was no bigger than this,” she told the Washington Post in 1990, picking up a crumb from the table during a lunchtime interview.

At the time she became ill, Brown was serving as Director for Minority Enterprise at the Federal Communications Commission, where her specific goal was stimulating minority interest in owning and operating television stations. Sensibly, she rearranged her priorities and entered the hospital for surgery as soon as the doctor confirmed the diagnosis. “My entire breast was removed in a modified radical mastectomy, and I didn’t bother with reconstructive surgery,” she said later. “Prosthesis products are widely available in terms of being able to dress fashionably. I have one for swimming, one for strapless dresses, and regular bras for other wear. “Grateful to be alive, she soon went back to work, writing training programs for prospective television-station owners, giving speeches about ownership, and listing available financial opportunities and how to find them.

An Urgent Purpose

Brown’s experience with cancer had given her life an urgent demand that she try to prevent the same kind of suffering in other black women. Reaching out, she began to speak in local churches in the District of Columbia area. She had a very specific agenda: to attack the long-held false notions of breast cancer as a “white women’s problem;” to educate her audiences about the need for the regular medical care that might detect malignancies before they spread to other organs; and most of all, to serve as living proof that a diagnosis of breast cancer need not be an automatic death sentence.

The tragic exception was her own sister, Belva Brissett. A community activist herself, Belva helped to spread the word, though she had been stricken with breast cancer herself. In 1989 the disease began to spread. Zora drove her sister to doctors’ appointments, sat with her in the hospital, read the newspaper to her, and supported her when she wearily remarked that the process of getting well was more daunting than the cancer. In her case, this proved to be correct—in 1990 the cancer won.

Today, Belva Brissett is remembered by two important things. One is the diary of her last months, which is in the possession of her family; the other is the Belva Brissett Advocacy Center within the Greater Southeast Healthcare System, which serves the District of Columbia and its surroundings. The center itself targets supermarkets, beauty shops, churches, and businesses in the inner-city area, with the express mission of educating women about breast cancer and encouraging them to treat regular screening as a top priority. Advocates are volunteers, who are trained by physicians, social workers, and other professional personnel working within the Southeast Healthcare system.

The Breast Cancer Resource Committee

The Belva Brissett Center is an offshoot of the Breast Cancer Resource Committee (BCRC), an organization formed in 1989 by Zora Brown herself. The central core of her life’s mission, BCRC came about shortly after a summit meeting on mammography on Capitol Hill, at which Brown was shocked to see an attendance of black women so small that she was able to invite them all out to lunch after the conference ended.

The BCRC maintained Zora Brown’s original mission : to achieve a 50 percent drop in Afro-American breast cancer deaths by the end of the century. Their chief weapon was education, with two main themes: that breast cancer does not choose its victims by race, and that regular mammograms are the best path to both prevention and early detection. Their third main objective was to offer support to those who had already been stricken.

Once organized, BCRC got off to a brisk start. An initial error was asking Marilyn Quayle, wife of former Vice-President Dan Quayle and daughter of an unlucky breast cancer victim, to speak alongside Zora Brown at churches with African American congregations. Quayle gladly co-operated. But the turnout was invariably disappointing, because the inner-city black women Brown was trying to reach often felt more comfortable with women of their own race. Brown understood their feelings. “I’m always more comfortable with African American women. I’m more relaxed . . . more forthright. We’re on the same wavelength.” Secure in the knowledge that she had a cause that no educated person could turn down, Zora Brown did not let this initial failure deflect her from her purpose. She simply looked for another gateway through which she could reach her target audience.

Once a Year For a Lifetime

The Revlon Company is a concern that has always found loyal support in the African American community. Convinced that their support would give her cause exposure, Brown contacted their foundation for funding to make a movie explaining the benefits of regular mammography. Then, with the help of Lilly Tartikoff, wife of the NBC President, she contacted Phylicia Rashad, a familiar face to fans of the Cosby Show, and Jane Pauley, a highly-respected television news anchorwoman.

On November 16,1990 the documentary movie Once a Year . . .Fora Lifetime made its television debut, and was immediately followed by the simultaneous appearance of the National Cancer Institute’s hotline number, together with an invitation to viewers to call with questions. The film carried a powerful message, made poignant by the use of Belva Brissett’s diaries, which had been carefully incorporated by the scriptwriter.

By 1991 Brown’s prominence as a personal health ambassador to Washington D.C.’s inner-city African American women was firmly established. Modestly she disclaimed any suggestion that this was due to her own determination to improve the security of their lives. “It has to do with the comfort level of me as a black woman,” she observed. “They identify with me more.”

This realistic, matter-of-fact statement found willing agreement on CapitolHill. That year she was appointed by President Bush to the National Cancer Advisory Board of the National Cancer Institute, which helps to steer the institution’s policy. The new appointment brought another benefit—a Congressional appropriation of $500,000 for breast and cervical screening for low-income, uninsured inner-city women.

Creating Public Awareness

Still, Brown was not satisfied. Anxious to reach black women nationwide, she invited 350 representatives from organizations such as the National Council of Negro Women to come to Washington for education and training on how to create public awareness campaigns. Then, she encouraged them to return to their own organizations and make even greater numbers of advocates from their own membership.

In 1992 she organized the Cancer Awareness Program Services (CAPS), to institute comprehensive educational and prevention programs focusing on cancers affecting women. The “coordinating” wing of the Breast Cancer Research Committee, CAPS compiles resources containing information about services available from federal, local and state agencies, and the medical and research communities, as well as makes it available to the public through the media and through public service messages.

By now, though all her efforts were beginning to take root, there was still one aspect of awareness that had yet to be covered. The Breast Cancer Research Committee was receiving constant requests for counseling sessions targeting only breast cancer victims. Initially reluctant ( “there were so many other support organizations,” she said), in 1993 Brown heeded the call for an all-black group by establishing Rise-Sister-Rise, a free Saturday morning gathering.

Rise-Sister-Rise

Like most other programs Brown initiated, Rise-Sister-Rise is meticulously organized. There is open enrollment, but participants are expected to attend eight sessions. Audiences listen to talks by nutritionists, psychologists, and medical personnel, all of whom gear their lectures to problem-solving as well as discussion of the actual illness itself. In order to emphasize the Afrocentrist culture, the approach is very spiritual. “Even those of us who don’t go to church have the same understanding of Biblical references, the same traditions, the same problems with our hair. . . . We speak a universal language,” Brown explained.

Recognition for Brown’s great efforts has been generous. In 1994 she had the satisfaction of seeing “Minority Breast Cancer Day” proclaimed by Washington, D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly, and of watching 400 women gather there in support of mammograms, further research, and regular medical care. The meeting was a triumphant watershed, and a welcome contrast to the 1989 Capitol Hill summit that had sparked the whole effort.

The following year she was honored by Senator Fred Hollings of South Carolina, who invited her to become a board member of the Hollings Cancer Center at the Medical University of South Carolina; she also appeared in a Washington Post feature called “Portraits of the City,” which lauded her for her work and for her goal—reducing cancer in African American women by 50 percent by the year 2000-now less than a decade in the future.