Burgess Owens: “Ron Brown was a renaissance politician, a jack of all trades who mastered them all. He was a mentor for seasoned…”

“Ron Brown was a renaissance politician, a jack of all trades who mastered them all. He was a mentor for seasoned professional politicians and he was qualified to tutor most of us. Ron used his considerable influence and charm to become an extraordinary fundraiser for the Democratic Party. From the complex job of raising money to the details of election day engineering, Ron performed with great enthusiasm. I first met Ron Brown in Chicago while campaigning for Harold Washington for mayor of Chicago. Former Majority Whip Bill Gray, Ron, and I were on a campaign swing through the public housing projects on Chicago's Southside. At that time, Ron was working with a well-known, prestigious, and powerful law firm in Washington. However, on that day, he was simply Ron the loyal friend, campaigning for a fellow Democrat. We went into huge, tall, cold concrete buildings and walked on floors which seemed to be completely out of this world. The deterioration and garbage inside the halls were unbelievable even to a poor boy like me whose father had never earned more than the minimum wage. I had lived in some of the poorest neighborhoods of Memphis and worked in some of the poorest neighborhoods in New York, but never had I seen such despair. The only glimmer of light we saw in those highrise urban tunnels were the Harold Washington posters that the residents waved at us when they saw our familiar signs. We had connected with the most oppressed among us.…”