Born in Harlem in 1939, Mr. Brown joined the Air Force at age seventeen. After twenty years of service, during which he lived everywhere from Texas to Germany to the Philippines, Mr. Brown landed in Portland, Oregon, where he began taking pictures for a local paper. Through his pictures, he met so many people and learned of the many challenges facing Portland’s Black community. At some point, he set down his camera and started talking. And as his friends like to say: once he started talking, he never shut up.

Over the years, Mr. Brown has worked just about every issue affecting Black Portlanders. He’s fought for fair housing and against forced bussing, for equity in arts funding and against environmental racism, and above all, he has worked to bridge the gap between the Black community and Portland police. He sees his community as a yardstick, with police at zero inches and Black people at thirty-six. For years, he’s been standing strong at eighteen inches, and he has no plans to move.

To learn more about Mr. Brown’s work, take a look at his resume or his photography.