SNCC 60th

At the age of 15, he organized a walkout of students at Southern High School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in solidarity with ongoing demonstrations at nearby Southern University. The walkout caused the administration to shut the school down for two days and nearly got him expelled.

Eight years later, H. Rap Brown joined with local activists in the Alabama Black Belt to challenge white supremacy through the ballot box. In Greene County, that meant fighting to get Black candidates on the ballot, and it meant direct confrontations with authorities.

Brown was steadfast in his determination and deeply committed to the cause. “I knew it was my responsibility to work for the liberation of my people and anybody who tried to stop me might get killed.”

His older brother, Edward Brown, helped direct his youthful enthusiasm toward constructive uses in the Movement. As a student at Southern University, Ed Brown was expelled after participating in and leading protests and decided to move to Washington, D.C. where he enrolled at HU.

Ed would regularly host his younger brother and bring him to meetings on campus with the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG). Through NAG and its members, which included Stokely Carmichael, Courtland Cox, and Muriel Tillinghast, Rap Brown was introduced to the Movement.

According to his autobiography, “All that fall, I'd been working with the Howard people in NAG and I was elected Chairman. Even though I never went to Howard myself, I wanted to develop the relationship between the school and the community.”

He came to Mississippi as a volunteer during the 1964 Freedom Summer. But frustrated by the barriers to voting rights there, he returned to Washington after only four weeks.