My Friend Jim Brown

I first met Jim in the fall of 1973 at Woodrow Wilson Junior High School, in Tulsa, where he would continue teaching history for several years.  His room was near mine on the first floor.  Wilson was part of the recent court-ordered desegregation plan with forced busing of minority students; its sports teams were the Wilson Rebels.  As we became better acquainted I could tell Jim truly had a gift for teaching.   One day I noticed Jim welcoming several African American adults into his classroom and later asked him what he was doing.  He shared that the guests were telling his students their stories about the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot—a lesson in oral history.  As an exclusive product of the Tulsa Public Schools I said in response, “The Tulsa what?”  Like most white children of my generation raised in Tulsa I had never heard of the Race Riot and that day I became one of maybe thousands of Tulsans who learned about it from historian Jim Brown and his guests, many referred by College Hill members Dr. William and Lillian Perry. 

That same year Linda and I found our way to College Hill Presbyterian Church and were pleasantly surprised to find that Jim and Sara were active here.  As much as religion the church became a place where Jim and I and others learned about and discussed current events and politics.  During election seasons Jim organized many adult Sunday School classes around candidates for public office, always inviting both parties.  Congressman James R. Jones attended several and I believe was Jim’s guest during each of his campaigns from 1972 through 1984.  When I decided to run for the Tulsa School Board in 1976 Jim became my first and hardest working volunteer.  The general election was city-wide and Tulsa’s teachers were not happy with the incumbent I tried to unseat, so the campaign galvanized many who had never been involved before.  Though we lost that race many of us, especially the teachers involved like Jim, Elaine Dodd and Connie Koch, caught the political bug and wanted more.  We learned about the upcoming Tulsa County Democratic Party’s presidential nominating convention, and went to our precinct meetings all over the city getting elected as delegates, Jim and I for Fred Harris.  Our plan was to send teachers to the state convention to be part of nominating the Democrat who would run against Gerald Ford in the 1976 election.   The only problem was that Tommy D. Frazier, Mr. Democrat in Tulsa for decades, had a different plan.  As he sat in the back of our caucus room in his wheel chair he signaled his associates before each vote, and however Tommy D. signaled, two-thirds of the room would vote.  We elected no teachers as state delegates that day but Jim, Elaine, Connie and others learned how it worked.  Four years later, in strong partnership with Tommy D. Frasier and having proved themselves as loyal campaign workers in legislative, city and most recently my successful 1980 school board election, Jim Brown and Euna Smith became the first Tulsa teachers we know of to go to a national Democratic convention, held that year at Madison Square Garden in New York City where President Jimmy Carter was nominated to seek re-election.    Jim’s fellow delegates that year included Governor George Nigh, future state superintendent Sandy Garrett, and Tommy D’s younger brother Jim Frasier.  Over the next two decades I ran for election to local offices nine more times, winning all until defeated by Bill LaFortune in our contest to be Mayor of Tulsa.  Jim, and Sara until her death, were active in each one.  I never liked campaigning, but knowing Jim and I would be working together gave me that to look forward to.  Sometime along the way it became apparent to me that Jim and I were supporting the wrong candidate; Jim was the natural people person and that showed in the lopsided vote totals I received from the Florence Park precinct where he and Sara lived and that I couldn’t match with my own neighbors or anywhere else.  I suggested more than once he ought to run for office, but don’t think he ever seriously considered doing so.  Jim also believed in ethical campaigns focused on the issues and not attacking opponents, a standard I tried to live up to and when I fell short once, in our last campaign, he let me know his disappointment.  So President Jimmy Carter, Congressman James R. Jones, State Senators Penny Williams and Tom Adelson, State Representatives Jeannie McDaniel and Mary Easely, Mayor Susan Savage and many, many others were the beneficiaries, as was I, of Jim’s hands on patriotism. Jim and the other teachers in Tulsa during those years made a big difference and their advocacy, including a state-wide walk out, paid off for Oklahoma’s children with the passage of House Bill 1017 in 1990, authored by his state senator Penny Williams, the greatest education reform legislation in our state’s history and an inspiration to Oklahoma teachers in winning their historic pay increase last year.

Our friendship wasn’t all about politics and church.  Among several fun outings like the Woody Guthrie festival in Okema, Byron Berline in Guthrie and couples’ weekends in Pawhuska, our Wildflower weekend stands out.  Around 1990 the four of us got in my new used car, a Honda Accord, standard transmission, and headed to Quartz Mountain State Park and Lodge for a weekend of lectures and field walks to enjoy the amazing wildflowers in bloom that spring and each other’s company.  On our return to Tulsa that Sunday we drove through the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge including a drive to the top of Mt. Scott.  Somewhere west of Oklahoma City, around Newcastle on I-44, the transmission gave out.  Before cell phones when cars broke down you either waited for someone to stop or you went looking.  While Linda and Sara stayed with the car Jim and I headed out to the nearest farm house across a fenced pasture, maybe a quarter mile.  The owners welcomed us and let us use the phone.  While I called a wrecker service and my father to rescue us, Jim engaged in conversation with our good Samaritans and asked them about a framed display on the wall.  It was the Medal of Honor awarded to their son.  I remember little else than that since I was focused on the present and getting us home, but Jim, being Jim, enjoyed a real life experience of military history and honored that hero’s family by listening attentively to their story.  For me that day was inconvenient and stressful; for Jim it was another opportunity to learn, grow and lift others up.

Jim was my best friend and as I say that I know others here today are thinking the same thing, because Jim was a friend to so many–and you could have no better friend than Jim Brown.         

Jim passed away after a hard struggle with skin cancer on April 28, 2019, at home in the loving presence of his wife Ann Franklin and his children Tim and Celia Brown. Three other men shared at Jim’s memorial service in May that he was their best friend.