Frank London Brown
Frank London Brown was an influential African American writer, civil rights activist, and educator known for his contributions to literature and social justice. Born as the eldest of three children, he moved to Chicago's South Side during his youth. After serving in the U.S. Army, he pursued higher education, earning degrees from Roosevelt University and the University of Chicago, where he also engaged in significant academic work. Brown's literary career was marked by his role as an associate editor at Ebony magazine, and he authored various essays, short stories, and book reviews.
His most notable work, the novel "Trumbull Park," reflects his personal experiences as one of the first African American families to desegregate a Chicago housing development in the 1950s. This work is often compared to Lorraine Hansberry’s "A Raisin in the Sun," highlighting the broader African American struggle for civil rights during that era. Brown was also actively involved in civil rights efforts, participating in demonstrations and initiatives aimed at combating racial injustice. His legacy includes not only his literary achievements but also his commitment to advocating for equal rights and representation.
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Subject Terms
Frank London Brown
Writer
- Born: October 7, 1927
- Birthplace: Kansas City, Missouri
- Died: March 12, 1962
- Place of death: Illinois
Biography
Frank London Brown was the eldest of three children born to Frank London Brown, Sr., and Myra Brown. When he was twelve years old, he and his family moved to Chicago’s South Side. In 1944, Brown, at the age of sixteen, went to the office of Negro Digest, the magazine founded by John H. Johnson three years ahead of his most successful publication Ebony, and asked for a job as an editor. When he was offered employment as a delivery boy instead, he did not accept the job. However, fifteen years later, in 1959, Brown was hired as an associate editor at Ebony.
After Brown graduated from DuSable High School in 1945, he attended Wilberforce University prior to serving in the U.S. Army from 1946 to 1948. While Brown served in the military, he married Evelyn Jones in 1947, and they eventually became the parents of three daughters. Their son did not survive infancy. When Brown’s military service ended, he transferred to Roosevelt University, received a B.A. in 1951 and attended the Kent College of Law from 1953 to 1954. He earned a M.A. from the University of Chicago in 1960 and was enrolled in a Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago, where he was a fellow of the University’s Committee on Social Thought as well as director of the University’s Union Research Center at the time of his death.
Brown was a civil-rights activist who, while working as a journalist covering the lynching of Emmett Till in 1955, helped an African American escape from Mississippi after Till’s murder. He participated in a demonstration to desegregate a public beach in Chicago in 1961, and he took part in a 1961 sit- in that protested the unfair housing practices in apartment buildings owned by the University of Chicago during the time Brown taught there. Brown held a variety of jobs including the position of program coordinator for the United Packinghouse Workers of America, AFL-CIO, yet his career as a writer was always foremost.
Brown wrote book reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune, liner notes for record covers, short stories, and essays that were published in periodicals such as the Chicago Review, Negro Digest, Phoenix, and Southwest Review. From 1952 to 1953, he read his short stories to jazz music at the Gate of Horn nightclub in Chicago. In 1958, Brown traveled to New York to interview Thelonious Monk for Down Beat magazine, and at Monk’s request, Brown read his short stories to Monk’s jazz accompaniment at the Five Spot.
Brown, who was the recipient of the John Hay Whitney Foundation Award for Creative Writing, is best known for his first novel, Trumbull Park, which is based on his own experiences as a member of one of the first African-American families to desegregate a Chicago housing development in the 1950’s. Along with Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, which opened on Broadway the same year Brown’s novel was published, Trumbull Park remains an eloquent portrayal of the African American quest for basic human rights in the mid-twentieth century.