You Can't Go Wrong Doing Right

November 5, 2018
Working from historical records and personal reminiscence, Brown recounts his improbable career as a political “superhero flying to the rescue” in this uplifting rags-to-riches memoir. An insightful and honest guide to the racial difficulties his generation faced, Brown traces the trajectory of an illustrious career in an elegantly structured narrative bookended with an account of a 1988 incident in South Africa. The main text opens with the author’s childhood and early years as a police officer in North Carolina in the late 1950s. An appointment by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics moved him and his young bride to New York City, where he met Martin Luther King Jr. The next two sections cover Brown’s role in the civil rights movement and his time as a special assistant to the president during Nixon’s first term. Though a registered Democrat, Brown embraced the opportunity to become the “first black man named to the new administration.” With Nixon’s support, he more than doubled federal funding for black universities, identified black military leaders for promotion, promoted integration for public schools in the South, and, as luck would have it, got out before Watergate. This pleasant and introspective memoir will inspire readers to be of service. Agent: Jan Miller, Dupree Miller.

January 1, 2019
A memoir from one of the most understated yet pivotal players in the history of American civil rights.While most of his work occurred outside of the spotlight, Brown has left a deep imprint on the history of the African-American struggle for equality. Oft-identified as a close friend of Martin Luther King Jr. and "the only person allowed to visit Nelson Mandela" during his Cape Town imprisonment, the author fleshes out a lifetime studded with important experiences. Growing up in the Jim Crow North Carolina of the 1930s and '40s, Brown endured a hardscrabble childhood under the love and tutelage of his compassionate grandmother "Mama," Miss Nellie Brown. "Whether singing in our church's gospel choir or canning vegetables," writes the author, "she called out Jesus with the best of them and she set our moral compasses with lessons from the Bible." After a stint in local law enforcement, the author landed a job in New York as a federal narcotics agent, launching a series of events that would lead to his meeting with King in 1958 and later executing a staged narcotics buy for the "Senate Rackets Committee's top lawyer," Robert F. Kennedy. With greater ambitions, Brown moved back to his home state and founded the public relations firm B&C International, which become the anchor of his significant role as a race-relations liaison between the black and white communities--business, political, or otherwise. Among his many achievements, the author chronicles his five years working as special assistant to President Richard Nixon, a job in which he developed the pivotal Office of Minority Business Enterprise. Throughout the volume, weaving together the stories of milestones personal and cultural, Brown continually falls back on the echoes of his grandmother, whose wisdom included the mantra, "you can find good anywhere, and you can do good everywhere."A humble and timely book that speaks to an era of sweeping change and a reminder that faith and love are two of the best weapons to counter hatred.

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September 1, 2018

CEO and founder of B&C International, a global management consulting firm, Brown has been in the thick of crucial social change for decades, e.g., helping the white corporate leadership at Woolworth integrate their lunch counters and serving as counselor to every American president since John F. Kennedy. A survey of American politics, plus his grandmother's sound spiritual advice.

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