Millicent E. Brown papers
Collection Overview
The collection consists of personal and professional documents, correspondence, and newspaper clippings relating to Millicent Brown's experience integrating Rivers High School; studying at Howard University, College of Charleston, The Citadel, and Florida State University; and teaching at Bennett College, Guilford College, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and the Governor's School of the College of Charleston. Other documents pertain to Brown's participation at a Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporation event, the Bicentennial Committee for Educational Programs, the Avery Research Center, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations, Citizens Want Excellence at IAAM, and other political and civic activities. Brown's writings focus on the Civil Rights Movement in Charleston, South Carolina and include papers given at conferences. Her essay The Dippity Doo Revolution: Or Grown Folks Don't Have a Clue
was included in Children of the Dream: Our Own Stories of Growing Up Black in America. She also wrote a chapter titled The NAACP Years: Newman as South Carolina Field Director which is a part of The Spirit of an Activist: The Life and Work of I. DeQuincey Newman.
The Avery Research Center's Library has a copy of Brown's dissertation, Civil Rights Activism in Charleston, South Carolina. Brown is also featured on seven Non-Commercial Videos,
located in the Avery Reading Room: Midday Program, Channel 5 with Millicent Brown,; Collections Workshop, Stern Center Ballroom, Don West and Millicent Brown; Funeral Artifacts; Charleston's Chinese Box
; A conNECKted Project: Millicent Brown and Harriet Jenkins Simon
; Millicent Brown - Interview - Master
; and Minerva T. King Interview for Storycorps
.
Dates
- Creation: 1949-2023
Creator
- Brown, Millicent E. (Person)
Access Restrictions
No restrictions.
Copyright Notice
The nature of the Avery Research Center's archival holdings means that copyright or other information about restrictions may be difficult or even impossible to determine despite reasonable efforts. The Avery Research Center claims only physical ownership of most archival materials.
The materials from our collections are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study, pursuant to U.S. copyright law. The user must assume full responsibility for any use of the materials, including but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials. Any materials used for academic research or otherwise should be fully credited with the source.
Biographical Note
In 1948, Millicent Ellison Brown was born in Charleston, South Carolina to MaeDe and J. Arthur Brown. Her father was the local and state president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1963, Millicent replaced her older sister Minerva as the primary plaintiff in a NAACP-sponsored lawsuit Millicent Brown versus Charleston County School District #20. Filed to desegregate the Charleston public school system, the lawsuit resulted in Brown becoming one of two African Americans students to integrate Rivers High School in 1963.
Graduating from Rivers High School in 1966, Brown then attended the College of Charleston and received her B.A. in History, 1975. She received her M.Ed. in Education from The Citadel in 1978.
From 1989 to 1991, Brown served as the Director of Exhibits and Museum Education at the Avery Research Center.
Brown earned a Ph.D. in History from Florida State University in 1997, writing her dissertation on the history of civil rights activism in Charleston from 1940 to 1970.
Brown has taught at several universities in North Carolina and South Carolina, including Bennett College (1995-1999), Guilford College (1999-2002), North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (2001-2002), and The Governor's School at the College of Charleston (2002).
Brown is currently in the History and Sociology department at Claflin University in Orangeburg, SC
Extent
5.63 linear feet (15 archival boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
Millicent Ellison Brown (b. 1948) is an educator and civil rights activist. Born in Charleston to MaeDe and J. Arthur Brown, local and state president of NAACP (1955-1965), Brown, in 1963, replaced her older sister Minerva as the primary plaintiff in a NAACP-sponsored lawsuit (Millicent Brown vs. Charleston County School District #20).
The collection consists of personal and professional documents, correspondence, and newspaper clippings relating to Millicent Brown's experience integrating Rivers High School; studying at Howard University, College of Charleston, The Citadel, and Florida State University; and teaching at Bennett College, Guilford College, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and the Governor's School of the College of Charleston. Other documents pertain to Brown's involvement with Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., the Bicentennial Committee for Educational Programs, the Avery Research Center, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations, Citizens Want Excellence at IAAM, and other political and civic activities. Brown's writings focus on the Civil Rights Movement in Charleston, South Carolina and include papers given at conferences, her essay The Dippity Doo Revolution: Or Grown Folks Don't Have a Clue
, and her chapter The NAACP Years: Newman as South Carolina Field Director
.
Collection Arrangement
- Biographical Papers, 1984-2002
- Affiliations, 1949-2003
- Writings, Undated
- Audio-Visual Materials, 1988-1996
- Miscellaneous, 1988-2003
- AMN 1003-01, 1949-2023
Separated Materials
Books that were part of the AMN 1003-01 accrual to the collection have been separated from the collection and cataloged individually for inclusion in the Avery Research Center's Library Stacks. The catalog records for these materials includes a local note that they were part of the Millicent E. Brown papers collection. These materials include A Chalk and Chalkboard Career in Caolina by Lois Averetta Simms; Stolen Lives: Killed By Law Enforcement, second edition; Challenge and Change: The Story of Civil Rights Activist C.T. Vivian by Lydia Walker; Blind in Love (How Can You Not See I'M for Real) by Brother Debuff; Lingering Thoughts by Hermine P. Stanyard; Growing Up Jim Crow by Jennifer Ritterhouse; Children of the Movement by John Blake; Paradoxes of Segregation: African American Struggles for Educational Equity in Charleston, South Carolina, 1926-1972 by R. Scott Blake; The Children of the South by Margaret Anderson; Silent Covenants: Brown V. Board of Education and the Unfilled Hopes for Racial Reform by Derrick Bell; Children of the Dream: Our Own Stories of Growing Up Black in America edited by Laurel Holliday; Fired Up and Focused! Lessons on life, faith and business from Phillip Simmons by Michael E. Evans; Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks; Dawn of Desegregation: J.A. DeLaine and Briggs v. Elliot by Ophelia DeLaine Gona; A Black Parent's Handbook to Educating Your Children (Outside of the Classroom) by Baruti K. Kafele; Call Me Mister: The Re-Emergence of African American Male Teachers in South Carolina by Roy Jones and Aretta Jenkins; and, The Word Made Flesh: The Desegregation Leadership of the Rev. J. A. DeLaine by Julie Magruder Lochbaum.
Two copies of Dr. Brown's dissertation, Civil Rights Activism in Charleston, South Carolina, 1940-1970, have also been separated from the collection and cataloged individually for inclusion in the Library Stacks.
Blind in Love (How Can You Not See I'M for Real), Lingering Thoughts, Fired Up and Focused! Lessons on life, faith and business from Phillip Simmons, and Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom have inscriptions from the authors to Millicent on the first page of each. Children of the Dream: Our Own Stories of Growing Up Black in America has an inscription in the front from Dr. Brown to MaeDe Brown.
Growing Up Jim Crow, Paradoxes of Segregation: African American Struggles for Educational Equity in Charleston, South Carolina, 1926-1972, Silent Covenants: Brown V. Board of Education and the Unfilled Hopes for Racial Reform, and Civil Rights Activism in Charleston, South Carolina, 1940-1970 have annotations throughout them.
Processing Information
Processed by Georgette Mayo, 2005
Encoded by Melissa Bronheim, July 2010, and Amanda Ross, February 2011
Accrual processed by Nate Hubler, 2024.
Funding from the
Funding from the
Subject
- Avery Research Center -- History (Organization)
- Bennett College (Greensboro, N.C.) (Organization)
- Florida State University (Organization)
- Guilford College (Organization)
- Howard University (Organization)
- National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Charleston Branch (Charleston, S.C.) (Organization)
- North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (Organization)
- Rivers High School (Charleston, S.C.) -- History (Organization)
- Brown, J. Arthur, 1914-1988 (Person)
- Charleston County School District No. 20 (S.C.) -- Trials, litigation, etc. (Organization)
- College of Charleston. Governor's School (Organization)
- College of Charleston (Organization)
- Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina (Organization)
- Brown family (Family)
- Brown, MaeDe E. M., 1918-2012 (Person)
Topical
- African American college teachers
- African American universities and colleges
- African Americans -- Civil rights -- South Carolina -- Charleston
- African Americans -- Education -- South Carolina -- Charleston
- African Americans -- South Carolina -- Charleston -- History -- 20th century
- Race discrimination -- South Carolina -- Charleston -- History
- School integration -- South Carolina -- Charleston -- History
- Social action -- South Carolina -- Charleston -- History
- Title
- Inventory of the Millicent E. Brown Papers, 1949 - 2023 AMN 1003
- Status
- Under Revision
- Author
- Finding aid prepared by Processed by: Georgette Mayo; machine-readable finding aid created by: Melissa Bronheim and Amanda Ross; finding aid revised by Nate Hubler.
- Description rules
- Dacs
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- Description is in English
- Sponsor
- Funding from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation supported the processing of this collection. Funding from the Council on Library and Information Resources supported the encoding of this finding aid. Funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation supported the processing of series 6, AMN 1003-01.
Revision Statements
- 2024: AMN 1003-01 was processed and finding aid was revised by Nate Hubler.
Repository Details
Part of the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture Repository
125 Bull Street
Charleston South Carolina 29424 United States
843-953-7608
averyresearchcenter@cofc.edu