» One Family’s Constant Push for Freedom: The Civil Rights Movement and Beyond

This post is written by Nate Hubler, the Avery Research Center’s Liberatory Legacies Archival Fellow, who started in this position in February 2024. She will contribute blog posts about the collections she is processing through the grant.

It is not easy to find words to succinctly and adequately describe the lives of J. Arthur and MaeDe Brown and the lives of their children and larger families. After processing accruals to the J. Arthur and MaeDe Brown papers (formerly the J. Arthur Brown papers), the Millicent E. Brown papers, and the Millicent E. Brown collection of the Somebody Had to Do It project, this difficulty is not due to a lack of material, far from it. Rather, I struggled because they and their children impacted so many lives in Charleston and beyond through their relentless fights for their communities and their determination to combat Jim Crow apartheid, racism, and white supremacy.  Like most things, it is, perhaps, easiest to start from the beginning. 

J. Arthur and MaeDe Brown: Growing Up and Settling Down 

J. Arthur Brown was born in 1914 to Millie and Joseph Brown in Charleston, South Carolina, where he grew up and attended school. During his early education, he completed a manual training program at the J. E. Burke Industrial School in 1928 and then attended the Avery Institute, from which he graduated in 1932. He left Charleston to attend South Carolina State College (SCSC) and earned a degree in Business Administration in 1937. While at SCSC, he also met his future wife, MaeDe Esperanza Meyers, who was studying business administration at the same time and graduated in 1939. 

MaeDe was born in 1918 in Austin, Texas, but moved to South Carolina and graduated from Robert Smalls High School in Beaufort before heading to Orangeburg for her collegiate education. The couple married in 1940, on MaeDe’s birthday, and settled down together back in Charleston. The couple had three daughters: MaeDe Joenelle Gordon, Minerva King, and Dr. Millicent Brown, and one son, Myles Gregory Brown.  

Avery, It’s a Family Affair 

Their children deepened the family’s connection to Avery with Joenelle completing 8^th grade at Avery in the school’s final year and Millicent serving as the Corresponding Secretary of the Avery Institute of Afro-American History and Culture at the time of its incorporation and then working at the Avery Research Center as the Education and Public Programs Specialist from 1989 to 1991. 

Paying the Bills 

After moving back to Charleston, both J. Arthur and MaeDe used their degrees in business administration. J. Arthur managed the Charleston rental properties that his father built. MaeDe worked for either the Black insurance company North Carolina Mutual or the all-Black Cannon Street Hospital and Nurses Training School (later McClennan-Banks Hospital.)”¹ The couple’s work managing affordable rental properties for Black Charlestonians and working at institutions that facilitated a better quality of life for Black residents merit study, but J. Arthur and MaeDe were active in the community beyond the scope of their jobs. 

The Brown Family and the Civil Rights Movement in Charleston 

As businesspersons, both became members of the Charleston Branch of the NAACP and J. Arthur became an officer and, eventually, President of the Branch in 1955. The branch’s efforts to combat segregation and racism in Charleston and South Carolina were spearheaded by legal challenges, political education, and direct-action including boycotts and sit-ins. 

In 1960, J. Arthur became the President of the South Carolina Conference of the NAACP. His accomplishments with the SC NAACP include successful lawsuits that led to the desegregation of all South Carolina state parks, the desegregation of the Charleston Municipal Golf Course, and the desegregation of the Charleston School District #20. Minerva and later Millicent were the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the Charleston School District.  

The immediate impact of the legal successes varied, with Millicent’s integrating Rivers High School within two weeks of the verdict while the South Carolina Attorney General closed the state parks for all following the requirement to admit all to the parks, regardless of race. And just as the NAACP filed cases against segregation, the legal system was also used against them through arrests and issuing restraining orders for members who pushed for change. Reactionary, racist violence was also a tool used against those campaigning for equality as evidenced by the flaming crosses thrown onto the steps of the Brown family home², among numerous other acts.  

The Civil Rights Movement in Charleston was multifaceted and extended far beyond the NAACP. Students had a crucial role in the movement as evidenced by the Burke High School students who staged a sit-in at the lunch counter of the S. H. Kress building on April 1, 1960, in protest of Jim Crow apartheid. Minerva was one of the 24 students involved in the sit-in and participated without the prior knowledge of her parents. Other groups in Charleston, like the Phillis Wheatley Literary and Social Club, of which MaeDe was an active member held voter registration drives. This sort of broad-based support coalesced into the Charleston Movement, which unified these activities and actions.  

Organizing After the Civil Rights Movement 

The Civil Rights Act passed in 1964; J. Arthur retired as President of the SC NAACP in 1965; and Millicent graduated from Rivers High School in 1966. These were signs that much was accomplished after decades of advocating and fighting for the end of Jim Crow apartheid, but the Brown family was far from finished. 

J. Arthur co-founded the Committee on Better Racial Assurance (COBRA) with William “Bill” Saunders, Robert R. Woods, Jessie N. Reid, and Aundrea I. Harney. As an officeholder, he continued fighting to improve the lives of all Black people living in Charleston and James Island and advocated for the rights of intellectually and physically disabled people. MaeDe became a regular volunteer with the Charleston County School District and continued participating in numerous local organizations like the Phillis Wheatley Literary and Social Club, the Three Fours Bridge Club, and the Charleston Chapter of the Links. 

Dr. Millicent Brown: A Life of Action and Learning 

Millicent also lived a life committed to seeking truth and freedom for Black people. After she graduated from Rivers High School, she studied at Emerson College and Spelman College as well as worked as a carpenter, at Liberty House³, and in youth counseling. In the early 1970s, she returned to Charleston and worked at COBRA, participated in and conducted research for the Kinte Library Project, “A Profile of the Free Black Society of the 1800s with Consideration of The Plantation Life of Early Black Families”, and earned a bachelor’s degree in history at the College of Charleston and a master’s degree in Education at The Citadel. In between degrees, she coordinated a high school competition centered around the theme of Black people’s roles in the American Revolutionary War as the Bicentennial Committee for Educational Programs Area Coordinator for South Carolina. 

She earned a doctorate in history from Florida State University and wrote her dissertation about Civil Rights activism in Charleston. She taught at Bennett College, the Governor’s School of the College of Charleston, Guilford College, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and Claflin University. At the latter, she conducted the Somebody Had to Do It oral history project (which you can read about in a great post from Mateo Mérida).  Her writing has been included in Children of the Dream: Our Own Stories of Growing Up Black in America and The Spirit of an Activist: The Life and Word of I. DeQuincey Newman and her own memoir, Another Sojourner Looking for Truth: My Journey from Civil Rights to Black Power and Beyond, was published this year. 

She has continued to advocate for honesty and freedom through co-funding Citizens Want Excellence at the International African American Museum and open conversations about Charleston’s ongoing gentrification, as evidenced by “A conNECKted Project: Millicent Brown and Harriet Jenkins Simon” (AMN 1003, Box 13, Folder 2).  

The Movement Continues 

For some, the fight against racism and white supremacy ended around the time that the Civil Rights Act became law, J. Arthur retired from the NAACP, and Millicent graduated high school, but these collections show that the fight never stopped. While aspects of the fight are different, some are, tragically, much the same. J. Arthur Brown served as a witness permitting an autopsy for Frank Brown, a Black man killed by police during a traffic stop in 1959, to determine the cause of death. While teaching at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in the early 2000s, Dr. Brown attended events and demonstrations recognizing the National Day Against Police Brutality. This is still the reality in 2024.  

Millicent and nine other students integrated Charleston School District #20 in 1963. During the 2015-16 school year, Burke High School’s student body was 99% Black⁴, and concerns have persisted since the 1960s about the underfunding and diverting of funds for schools largely serving Black students. The work of the Brown family across generations demonstrates that history did not occur in a vacuum, and neither does the present.  

The accruals to the J. Arthur and MaeDe Brown papers (formerly the J. Arthur Brown papers), the Millicent E. Brown papers, and the Millicent E. Brown collection of the Somebody Had to Do It project are all open to the public. We encourage everyone to review the finding aids and schedule an appointment to visit! 

Footnotes

1. Brown, Millicent E. Another Sojourner Looking for Truth: My Journey from Civil Rights to Black Power and Beyond, p. 6.  ↩︎
2. Brown, Millicent E. Another Sojourner Looking for Truth: My Journey from Civil Rights to Black Power and Beyond, p. 22.  ↩︎
3. Liberty House was a crafts cooperative focused on Black economic empowerment in Mississippi. The organizations sold hand-crafted products made by local and global communities. It opened in 1965 in Jackson, Mississippi. Information about the Liberty House can be found in the Margaret Walker Center’s Virtual Exhibition. A Liberty House product catalog is also held as part of the J. Arthur and MaeDe Brown papers (Box 16, Folder 19).  ↩︎
4. Brown, Millicent E. Another Sojourner Looking for Truth: My Journey from Civil Rights to Black Power and Beyond, p. 168.  ↩︎

Image citations 

South Carolina State College 1937 Commencement Program, J. Arthur and MaeDe Brown Papers, Box 7, Folder 17, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA. 

South Carolina State College 1939 Commencement Program, J. Arthur and MaeDe Brown Papers, Box 7, Folder 18, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA. 

Photo of J. Arthur and MaeDe Brown attending Millicent Brown’s wedding in 1974, Millicent E. Brown papers, Box 7 Folder 8, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA. 

Photo of J. Arthur with Joenelle, Minerva, and Millicent Brown, Millicent E. Brown Papers, Box 7, Folder 8 Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA. 

Joenelle Gordon Avery High School Report Card, J. Arthur and MaeDe Brown Papers, Box 7, Folder 16, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA. 

Photo of Joenelle and Millicent in front of 270 ½  Ashley Avenue, J. Arthur and MaeDe Brown papers, Box 15, Folder 3, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA. 

Photo of MaeDe Brown working, J. Arthur and MaeDe Brown Papers, Box 15, Folder 3, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA. 

Charleston Branch of the NAACP mass meeting poster, J. Arthur and MaeDe Brown Papers, Box 10, Folder 8 Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA. 

Photo of Millicent Brown and Tony DeLange attending the Rivers High School Junior and Senior Prom, Millicent E. Brown Papers, Box 7, Folder 9, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA. 

Restraining order against the Charleston Branch of the NAACP, J. Arthur and MaeDe Brown Papers, Box 9, Folder 16, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA. 

Segregation boycott poster, J. Arthur and MaeDe Brown Papers, Box 10, Folder 8, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA. 

Congratulatory telegram from Roy Wilkins, J. Arthur and MaeDe Brown Papers, Box 9, Folder 12, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA. 

Congratulatory telegram from Dr. Thomas C. McFall and Mrs. Blanche S. McFall, J. Arthur and MaeDe Brown Papers, Box 9, Folder 12, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA. 

Congratulatory telegram from the Charleston Chapter of Jack and Jill of America, J. Arthur and MaeDe Brown Papers, Box 9, Folder 12, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA. 

MaeDe Brown Fifty Years of Service in the Phillis Wheatley Literary and Social Club plaque, J. Arthur and MaeDe Brown Papers, Box 11, Folder 9, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA. 

Bicentennial Committee for Educational Projects informational booklet, Millicent E. Brown Papers, Box 7, Folder 14, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA. 

Brown family photo, Millicent E. Brown Papers, Box 7, Folder 8, Avery Research Center, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA.