MANATEE — Gwendolyn Brown was the first African-American to be elected to the Manatee Board of County Commissioners, and now is the first black person to serve as the board’s chair.
But historical milestones such as those are not big deals to Brown.
“I’m kind of laid back,” said the 57-year-old, life-long county resident as she sat in her office recently on the ninth floor of the county administration building overlooking the Manatee River.
“Certain things, I don’t allow myself to feed me up,” said the generally soft-spoken woman. “I just take things as they come.”
To those who know her, Brown’s humble, non-excitable nature comes as no surprise.
The Rev. James Golden, who has known Brown since he arrived in Bradenton to become pastor of Ward Temple AME Church in 1993, said he would expect her to de-emphasize the significance of her achievement.
Even though Brown becoming the first and only African-American to serve on the commission and then to be elected chairwoman, Golden knows she feels its her actions, not her color, that won her those positions.
“You still have to walk the distance,” said Golden, a former member of the Bradenton City Council.
Even when she first ran for county commission against incumbent Ed Chance in 1988, Brown downplayed the historical significance of the possibility of being the first African-American on that panel.
She said back then that she hoped to appeal to voters’ minds, not outward perceptions and labels.
When first approached to run for political office, it was the farthest thing from her mind.
“I said, ‘You’ve got to be out of your mind,’ ” Brown said with a little chuckle. “I never saw myself as a politician.”
But she had already proved herself a community leader, having served on the Lincoln Middle School advisory board and being active in the local NAACP.
“There were other people who were more outspoken than I was,” Brown said. “But I had experience attending county commission meetings for Head Start issues.”
After more prodding from community and party leaders, she decided to run for commissioner in 1988.
“Every day I would go home and I would go door-to-door to get signatures until about 10 at night,” she said. “It was kind of a struggle obtaining the number required, because there were a lot of challenges to the signatures.”
Brown said it was similar to what Barack Obama went though this past presidential election.
“I tried to convince people to talk about the issues,” she said. “The race issue was subtle.”
But at times, not so subtle.
“When I was trying to get my petition signed (to qualify for the elections) I would sometimes get a door slammed in my face,” said Brown, who was 37 at the time she was campaigning in 1988.
“But I was young and just kept on going,” she said. “It just gave me more fire to keep going.”
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