[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 8213-8214]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            TRIBUTE TO LIEUTENANT COMMANDER WESLEY A. BROWN

  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I wish to commemorate the life of 
retired Navy LCDR Wesley Anthony Brown, who passed away on May 22, 
2012, at the age of 85. Lieutenant Commander Brown was the sixth 
African American to attend and first to graduate from the U.S. Naval 
Academy in 1949, where he excelled as a notable student and athlete. 
Lieutenant Commander Brown went on to have a distinguished career in 
the Navy Civil Engineer Corps and retired in 1969 after serving 20 
years. Lieutenant Commander Brown is survived by his wife, Crystal 
Brown; two daughters, Wiletta Scott and Carol Jackson; two sons, Wesley 
Jr., and Gary; and seven grandchildren. I would like to take a moment 
to remember his life and what his accomplishments meant not just for 
the African American midshipmen who followed him at the Naval Academy, 
but also for our military and for our Nation.
  Lieutenant Commander Brown was born on April 3, 1927 in Baltimore, 
MD. He was the only child of William and Rosetta Brown. He grew up in 
Washington, D.C., and graduated from Dunbar High School, where he 
showed strong proficiency for math and a profound interest in the Navy. 
In fact, he worked on afternoons and evenings as a junior clerk for the 
Navy and during his senior year in high school he served as the Cadet 
Corps Battalion Commander. He later wrote an article in the Saturday 
Evening Post: ``I've been thinking about the Navy since I was about 8 
or 10 since the time I pinned the photograph of the old USS Lexington 
on my bedroom wall. I arranged my high school studies to get as much 
math and science as possible.'' This dedication and love of the Navy 
lasted throughout Lieutenant Commander Brown's life.
  Lieutenant Commander Brown was the first in his family to attend 
college. He first enrolled at Howard University before being nominated 
by Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. to attend the U.S. Naval 
Academy (USNA) in 1945. Five young African American men had entered 
USNA before Lieutenant Commander Brown, but they all left within a year 
because they could not endure the brutal hazing from hostile 
classmates. Lieutenant Commander Brown recalled that his first year at 
the Academy was ``tough,'' being subject to the constant torrent of 
racial epithets, taunts, and excessive demerits from upperclassman who 
wanted to see him fail the Naval Academy. Other midshipmen refused to 
sit next to him, room with him, or even allow him to join the choir. He 
once told an interviewer that he thought about quitting every day. Yet, 
he endured.
  Lieutenant Commander Brown did have a few supporters at the Naval 
Academy. There were a handful of fellow midshipmen who were friendly to 
him in spite of threats from other classmates. One of them who visited

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his dorm room to chat and encourage him to ``hang in there'' was future 
president Jimmy Carter, an upperclassman and teammate on the Academy's 
cross-country team at the time. In a speech President Carter gave at 
the Naval Academy last year, he mentioned Lieutenant Commander Brown. 
President Carter remarked that Midshipman Brown had a significant 
impact on his views on the issue of race in America. He called his 
encounter with Wesley Brown at USNA ``my first personal experience with 
total integration'' and said, ``A few members of my senior class 
attempted to find ways to give him demerits so that he would be 
discharged, but Brown's good performance prevailed.''
  Although African Americans had served and fought in our wars since 
the American Revolution, the Armed Forces remained segregated by units 
until President Truman integrated the military services by executive 
order in 1948. There was intense resistance against any attempts to 
integrate the military academies and only a half dozen or so African 
Americans had graduated from West Point by the time Lieutenant 
Commander Brown was commissioned as the first African American graduate 
of the Naval Academy.
  After Lieutenant Commander Brown graduated from the Naval Academy in 
1949, he was commissioned into the Navy Civil Engineer Corps. Prior to 
that, he served honorably in World War II and after he graduated, he 
served in Korea and Vietnam. As a Navy civil engineer, he also built 
houses in Hawaii, roads in Liberia, waterfront facilities in the 
Philippines, and a seawater conversion plan in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba 
before retiring from the Navy in 1969. Lieutenant Commander Brown 
continued his professional life working for the New York State 
University Construction Fund, the Dormitory Authority of the State of 
New York, and Howard University before retiring in 1998. He also served 
as chairman of District of Columbia Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton's 
Service Academy Selection Board.
  In spite of the challenges Lieutenant Commander Brown faced at the 
Naval Academy, he maintained a close connection to the school 
throughout his life and served as a member of the Naval Academy Alumni 
Association Board of Trustees. And in 2008, USNA honored Lieutenant 
Commander Brown by dedicating a new athletic facility in his name, a 
decision I supported while I served in the House of Representatives and 
since I have become a United States Senator. The Wesley A. Brown Field 
House was the first and only building dedicated to a living alumnus 
and, in his honor, the building hosts an annual track and field 
invitational. During the dedication of the building on the banks of the 
Severn River, ADM Michael Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff, stated, ``He fought a war his whole life for all of us to 
improve who we are as individuals, who we are both as a Navy and a 
nation. It was his noble calling and it was his call to service and 
citizenship that led to lasting change in our Navy and in our nation.'' 
In another tribute to this pioneer, a consortium of minority Naval 
Academy alumni established the Lieutenant Commander Wesley A. Brown '49 
Honor Scholar scholarship in 2007 which awards up to $5,000 annually to 
four individuals who are accepted into any 4-year university in 
Maryland.
  Although we have come a long way since Lieutenant Commander Brown's 
days as a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy, our Armed Forces and 
Nation are still challenged with discrimination based on race, gender, 
religion, and the other attributes of heterogeneity that make up this 
great country. While minority and female students may walk freely 
through our military academies without the audible taunts and slurs, we 
know that some of them face hazing and harassment behind closed doors 
because of who they are. While I know that Department of Defense 
leaders have a zero-tolerance policy regarding discrimination and 
harassment in their Service Academies, commands and units, that is not 
enough. I call on them to go a step further and redouble their efforts 
to communicate to those who currently serve and those who will serve 
our Nation in the future what makes our military the greatest force in 
history: the fact that our Armed Forces reflect the rich diversity of 
America. We owe it to Lieutenant Commander Brown and others like him 
who bravely endured racism and discrimination to pave the way so that 
others could serve honorably, too, and accomplish exceptional 
achievements on behalf of our country. Therefore, let Lieutenant 
Commander Brown's life be a testament to how his strength, courage, and 
humility through adversity not only transformed the people around him 
but profoundly affected the Naval Academy and our Nation. Today, 
minorities comprise more than 20 percent of the brigade of midshipmen 
and many of these young men and women have stated that Lieutenant 
Commander Brown was their inspiration. All Americans are fortunate to 
have had Lieutenant Commander Wesley Anthony Brown's selfless service 
and example.

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