Tony Brown, a pioneering African American journalist and former dean at two historically Black universities, passed away on June 17. He was 93 years old.
After serving in the U.S. Army, Brown, a native of Charleston, West Virginia, earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He began his five-decades-long career in journalism at the Detroit Courier and Detroit’s WTVS. In 1970, Brown became executive producer and host of Black Journal, a PBS program centered on issues of race and inequality. It was later renamed to Tony Brown’s Journal and remained on the air until 2008. The show was PBS’s longest-running series.
Alongside his career in broadcasting, Brown was dedicated to education. In 1971, he founded the School of Communication at Howard University and later served as the school’s dean. Years later, Brown was named the inaugural dean of the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications at Hampton University in Virginia. He wrote several books throughout his lifetime, including Black Lies, White Lies: The Truth According to Tony Brown (William Morrow, 1995) and Empower the People: Overthrow the Conspiracy That Is Stealing Your Money and Freedom (William Morrow, 1998).
