The Judge Makes a Ruling on Fatherhood
by Angela Scott

True to his TV persona, Joe Brown aka “Judge Joe Brown, the no-holds barred presiding judge” is a man who sets you straight – whether you ask for the correction or not. My first few minutes into a nearly 3-hour experience felt déjà vu – to say the least. It was as if I had known this man all of my life. He was my father, uncle, brother and psychoanalytical counselor all in one! Whew! Below is an excerpt of that interview.

Celebrating Children: Describe your childhood.

Judge Joe Brown: My father Joe Brown (deceased in 1987), wasn’t around until I was about 5, he and my mother broke up before then, but got back together. Before he came back, I always missed him and liked him better than my mother. With my dad, I found an individual who had persevered through a lot of setbacks. He got my attention not too long after he got back. He knocked out this guy during an argument and I was impressed. He taught me how to box. He boxed way back then and was quite good. He was a jack-of-all trade and was good at anything his set his heart and mind to do.

He was a helluva storyteller. He would make up stories. He’d invent cartoon characters, he would spin tales and I would say make me up one on so and so. I can remember every day when he’d drop me off at school and I’d get an episode every day. He taught me how to shoot and swim when I was 7.

His father (Donald Brown) was a preacher and his wife both attended college. He lived to be 98 and my grandma made it into her 90’s.

My father was one of 11 children, where only 3 survived and he was drafted in World War II and sent to one of those quartermaster units, where he wound up being a master sergeant. He graduated from Howard and went to Law School, but got violently ill and missed the final

He would regal me about the stories about World War II, and about how receptive the English. He had a bad feeling about Humphrey Bogart and Adolf Monjeaux (played a heavy in a lot of the 1930s movies) because they would tell the English to stay away from the n because they had tales and sicknesses. Despite being in one of those black units, he end up fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, where he had won the Silver Star and two Bronze stars, a combat infantry badge and the Purple Heart. And I didn’t believe this until I saw his military papers.

My old man got back together with us and I was born in D.C. and we moved to California. He wound up working some jobs, where he went to UCLA for some other jobs. He wound teaching at Gorman Avenue, which is a block from Jordan High on 103rd street. My mother was a librarian and taught at 116th Street School and they stayed for a long, long time – just to see if they could help work things out instead of doing something more lucrative.

Instead of getting just two A’s and two B’s, but I was supposed to get all A’s according to my mother, Annie Marie, who was also from Tenn. My father lived to be 98 years old and I was the last one to see him alive and I was 5 when he died. My grandfather on my mother’s side was born in 1854 and died in 1952, but he was not born a slave and practiced medicine from 1900 to 1951. He lied about his age (15 years) so that he could get into medical school. His father had been sold into the slave trade, but it was over. He was Yoruban and was kidnapped from Nigeria and was apparently a district sub-chief. He ran afoul of the slaveowner near him until he went bankrupt. As a good cobbler, my father purchased his favorite mistress and her five children that the slaveowner had with the mistress (great-grandmother) and they had my grandfather in Shreveport, LA. Right before he got into this thing of medical school, his brother was lynched, soon after he ran off to Tenn. and became a medical doctor. In Alex Haley’s Roots, there’s mention of a doctor that treats Haley’s father, while his father is at Lane College, and that was my grandfather that did it. My grandfather (William Dorsey) used to practice in Jackson, MS.

I went to Budlong Elementary, John Muir Junior High and then we moved to the Crenshaw District. It was a big transition going from all-black schools, to one that was mixed. When I was at John Muir, there were very concerned teachers, who picked out those who they thought would be future leaders and they saved us. They taught us Parliamentary Procedure and taught us public speaking [oratory].

I had Mr. Phelphs (black teacher that taught Social Studies) and he worked with me a lot, along with Ms. Nakamura, she taught leadership and the importance of volunteering for service in your community. They [teachers] came up with a concept, but it wasn’t articulated until later:

“The admit tees that are minorities should be those who have characteristics, ambitions and desires that would maximize the fallout from their education to their respective communities.” What I said was we “We wanted students who would maximize the fallout to their respective communities from the education that they received. From that genre we have judges, lawyers, doctors and businessmen, who are distinctly active in their communities all out of proportion that you would expect.


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