’What’s important is what you share.’ Palmetto native gives back for Thanksgiving
Edward Brown grew up poor, the middle child in a family of nine with a single mother.
He often went barefoot because his family couldn’t afford shoes. Before he went to his first-grade class, he was dragging a basket through tomato fields for his mother during harvest season.
As he grew older, he went to work in Manatee County orange groves and strawberry fields, and in the summer would travel to Maryland for the vegetable harvest.
At 17, he joined the Marines, fought as a squad leader in Vietnam, and received the Purple Heart for wounds suffered in combat.
“I can define my childhood as being very difficult. It was rough. I learned to go out and work for a living,” Brown, now 75, said. “You have to take the hand that you are dealt. You take that and make the best of it.”
Despite that difficult beginning, Brown has warm memories of growing up in the Washington Park area of Palmetto, a tight-knit, predominantly Black neighborhood, and of attending the all-Black Lincoln High School in the 1960s, before Manatee County schools were integrated.
He credits his success to that environment and guidance from his hard-working mother, and three “dictatorial” sisters.
“They protected me like I was Fort Knox,” he said.
Brown, who retired after a 25-year career in law enforcement in the Miami-Dade area, grew affluent investing in real estate and starting a security guard and private investigation company, and later still becoming a pastor in the Miami area.
Inspired in part by the example of Lee Hardy, another alum of Lincoln High School, who for several years has made and distributed hundreds of Easter baskets to Manatee County children, Brown decided that he needed to do something to give back to the community where he started life.
“Growing up we were neighbors, but he was a little older than me and I didn’t know him well. He asked me about the baskets and I said I just sat down and made them,” Hardy said.
Out of that discussion, Brown decided to see if he could distribute turkeys to residents of his old neighborhood, but discovered that might be a bigger challenge than he imagined because of supply chain problems.
Instead, he decided to distribute vouchers for $20 Winn-Dixie gift cards to as many as 400 families to use however they desired.
Those residents were invited to take part take part in a program recognizing community leaders and activists Tuesday morning, followed at 11 a.m. by an exchange of vouchers for gift cards at Mount Raymond Full Gospel Church.
An informal committee, largely drawn from Lincoln High School classes from 1964 to 1969, drew up the list of residents to be recognized for leadership, community service and lifetime achievement.
“You can’t take it with you, so you might as well do what you can to help somebody,” Brown said. “I am fully retired. Now, it’s time to give back. What you have doesn’t mean a thing. What’s important is what you share with others.”
Lee Hardy says it is heart-warming to see what Brown has planned.
“It’s a wonderful thing. He had such a hard time when he was growing up,” Hardy said.
Henry Lawrence, who went on to a career in the NFL as an offensive lineman with the Oakland Raiders, also remembers Brown. Lawrence — who played on the last Lincoln High football team in 1968 before transferring to Manatee High School during the start of integration — graduated from Florida A&M University and then was a member of three Raiders’ Super Bowl-winning teams. He was named to the 1983 and 1984 Pro Bowl squads.
“He is a dynamic individual,” Lawrence said of Brown. “I remember him coming back from Vietnam in his military uniform. He has always been a progressive guy. I think it’s pretty awesome what he is doing.”
Many distinguished graduates came out of Lincoln High School, and Brown is one of those, Lawrence said.
“He is doing some major stuff, even though he is in Miami. He has caused others to get involved,” Lawrence said.
Award recipients
▪ Leadership: Rev. Jason Williams, Rev. David Washington, Rev. Donald Shipp, Rev. William DuSue, Rev. James Roberts, Rev. Jasper Jackson, County Commissioner Reggie Bellamy, Coach Eddie Shannon, Morris Goff, and Moody Johnson.
▪ Community service: Bill Wiggins, Henry Lawrence, Theodore Tillis, Gwen McElroy, Bernard Washington, Terry Johnson, Rosemary Murray, Maggie Lee Taylor, Dr. Linda Brown, Shirley Robinson, Alfonso Brown, Mary Lee Tillis, Lee Hardy, Mandy Clark, Robert Brown and Thomas Wiggins.
▪ Man of the Year: Johnny Yawn
▪ Lifetime Achievement: Steve Lewis, Thomas Wiggins and Theodore Tillis
This story was originally published November 25, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
