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Biography

Socially and politically motivated since his youth in Waterloo, Tony Brown has been a moving force in music and social change. His integrated Reggae band in the 1960s inadvertently introduced the idea of diversity in music and in people to many Iowa localities. He worked with the Black Panthers, the NAACP, and other civic organizations throughout the years. No matter where he lives, Waterloo, Iowa City, or Belize, he is active in motivating others-adults and children-to better their lives, expand their outlook and perspective, and improve their community. Along the way, his music has earned him a large fan base and induction into the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008 and the Iowa Music Hall of fame in 2002, an award few African Americans have achieved.

Transcript

Date of Interview: 14 March 2010

Tajeria Beacham-Hi my name is Tajeria Beacham and I am going to be interviewing Mr. Tony Brown on the topic of African American History Makers in Iowa City. Hi Mr. Tony Brown, how are you?

Tony Brown: How are you?

Tajeria: I am good. So how long have you been living in Iowa?

Tony Brown: How long have I been living in Iowa?

Tajeria: Um-huh.

Tony Brown: I grew up in Iowa. I haven’t lived in....I just moved back to Iowa three years ago from Belize, from West Indies, from Central America. So, I’ve been back in Iowa City now for three years. But, I grew up in Waterloo and went to college here and performed in the state and so forth.

Tajeria: While you were in Belize, what were you doing?

Tony Brown: Music and civil organization; music.

Tajeria: With your Reggae music?

Tony Brown: Reggae music, yeah. We were, basically the band and the musicians I played with back in the ’60s were ground breakers; because no one....a lot of the black bands weren’t playing in the places we played at. We didn’t get any recognition too much; number one because we were in Iowa. But, we opened a lot of doors up for a lot of people. We had a totally integrated band, so we were doing a lot of things that weren’t done, hadn’t been done yet in the state.

Tajeria: How did it feel in the Civil Rights Movement, not getting notified and not getting recognized for all that you were doing?

Tony Brown: We never expected to. We were just trying to make a living and have fun. So at a certain point, we began to understand the social/political aspects of what we were doing. Because in some cases we’d go to some towns and we’d get met by policemen or after the show we get escorted out of the town by policemen. And so you start realizing that somebody is paying attention to you playing in these towns and there’s a reason why they are. Unbeknownst to us at the time, it was a highly politically charged situation in some of these places to have us come and play, because we are basically playing for all white audiences. And then our fans from like Cedar Rapids and Des Moines and Waterloo and Davenport were coming and following us, so all of a sudden you were getting integrated crowds at these places that normally didn’t have more than one black person in the county. So, yeah it began to break through and it was during the Civil Rights Movement and the Viet Nam War, so it was a pretty charged time period, for social reform and for social development in the state as well as in the nation and the world.

Tajeria: During this time were you involved with any other organizations or activities other than....

Tony Brown: Yeah I was. I was involved with the Black Panther Party. I was involved with somewhat, with the NAACP and different other civic organizations. I call them civic organizations other people call them other things, but we were all focusing on making the community, the black communities, more secure, more educated, and more self-reliant on education and inner strength within our communities. We were trying to organize people to realize the power that we had in numbers versus the power we had from, from an economic state, we didn’t have too much power, but we had a lot of people who all shared the same issues; the same social/political issues. So, it was very important to be involved with these organizations, because other than the churches at the time, it was the other thing that gave black people hope in the state of Iowa. Somebody with the nerve to stand up and say this is not right to treat human beings this way and we are American citizens and we demand our rights.

Tajeria: You mentioned the churches. How did the church play a part in your life during that time?

Tony Brown: The church was basically the first organized, black, Afro-American entity in my life, because of the fact that’s where we all congregated. Every Sunday, we, back in those days, we all had to go to Sunday school.

Tajeria: Everybody.

Tony Brown: Everybody had to go to Sunday school. Then if you could sit still long enough, you would go to the church service. The message of spirituality or religion at that point was very central, because that was another aspect that gave us hope-that God was working with us, if we maintained goodness in our lives, God would be there to help us. So it was very important security blanket, more or less, in going through all the social difficulties that we were all experiencing, mutually.

Tajeria: While you were, being involved in the organization, what did your friends and family think about that? How did they react to that?

Tony Brown: Well, my family had always been involved. My grandfather was Grand Exalted Ruler of the Black Elks Club in Waterloo, which they had a marching band, drum and bugle corps, and they had a big auditorium. And every weekend they had big shows, big musicals, concerts like James Brown and Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles and Etta James and Duke Ellington and Count Basie and Bo Diddley, and The Impressions and all those people. They brought them to Iowa to perform on the weekends. Back in the days as well in Waterloo there was a lot of industry, there was Rath Packing House, there was John Deere’s of course and Chamberlain’s which were all employing three-quarters of the black population of the town. So black people back then, economically, had more flexibility than they do even now because there were more black people working in those factories. All of my uncles and aunts either worked at John Deere’s or Rath Packing House, so black people had a little bit more money. There were more job opportunities, because there was more demand for labor at that time period.

Tajeria: So being involved in the Black Panther’s Party, did your friends look at you funny for trying to........?

Tony Brown: No, my friends, every, see back then in those days, everybody was socially and politically motivated. With Martin Luther King, with H. Rapp Brown, with the Black Panther Party, with the NAACP, with all the black organizations that existed, black people were very much involved with the Civil Rights Movement at the time period. So it wasn’t ever looked at a thing like your friends looked at you weird, because we were all doing it. This was life or death. We thought that this was the great confrontation with the government that would bring equality finally to black people in Iowa and the United States. So when there was a March on Washington, there was a large congregation of people that went from Iowa. It was a very important thing. Whereas now people see you get involved with social or civil activates and they look at you weird.

Tajeria: That is what my ex said.

Tony Brown: Because it is not cool, but I think it is cool to save people’s lives. More cool and hip than to look good or to know the newest hip- hop artists, or to wear the right clothes or hang out with the right people; to protect the future of black people and the people of the world, is more important than being hip.

Tajeria: That’s true. Being involved with all that through your life, did that help you accomplish anything?

Tony Brown: It gave me a sense of self and it gave me a sense of community, that I knew that everything that I do was not just for myself, it was for the people that died, that didn’t get to fulfill their dreams. My mother never got to fulfill her dreams; my cousins never got to fulfill their dreams. So now I’m representing. I am not only representing them, I am representing the next group of people that want to go through and do something with their lives positively. I know that it’s possible, because I have done it already.

Tajeria: Is that what inspires your music?

Tony Brown: Yes. Totally!

End of First Video beginning of Second

Tajeria: I notice you have a pin. What is that pin for?

Tony Brown: The pin is....I was inducted into the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. I was inducted in the Iowa Music Hall of fame in 2002. There are things that I felt honor again to be considered as a person in the Hall of Fame and the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has very few black people in it. So I’m one of very few who has been honored to get that accolade in my life.

Tajeria: Was that one of your happiest memories of being recognized?

Tony Brown: There’s a lot of happy memories of being recognized, but those were self achievements versus I would more happy or more proud of having black people recognized for being united and doing stuff together, get rid of crime in the inner cities, getting drugs off the streets, getting guns out of the kid’s hands; that would make me proud. This is just individual achievements.

Tajeria: Are you doing anything now to help those,
accomplish, to get those....?

Tony Brown: Yeah, I’m still working. Right now my main focus is on my creativity. Which is my music and my art and I’m also a writer. So I’m still making that effort to create some kind of economic foundation to do these other things I want to do. It’s very hard because there are not a lot of organizations that can give you money.

Tajeria: And one person can’t do all of it.

Tony Brown: Yeah, and the organizations they have reasons why they say, “We can’t give you any money; we are trying to stay alive ourselves.” I’m trying to get money to go into the schools systems in Waterloo, Iowa to help all the at risk and high risk kids, see another option in their lives, instead of why they became high risk kids. So even the...what is it called....the Board of Education is saying they don’t have money for it. So it’s really hard to accomplish things when you have people that are supposed to be helping people accomplish things put up resistance to helping you accomplish things.

Tajeria: I think that’s one of the reasons why a lot of kids, act the way they do. They don’t see no one trying to help them or benefit them a lot of time.

Tony Brown: We used to have a youth organization and every Friday and Saturday night we’d have youth dances or like the drum and bugle corps they had. We had a junior drum and bugle corps and then they had a competition drum and bugle corps. I had a proposal that I put before the Belizean government and it was called Belize One. Which it was, was a place where kids could come and learn how to play instruments, how to paint, how to write, responsibly write their thoughts in a coherent, cognizant manner, and also to learn how to communicate on a social, business, and political level. The same type of program I think is needed...

Tajeria: needed here.

Tony Brown: ...here, in every community, is like have our own school that would be a supplement to the regular educational schools that kids could go as an outlet to, not only for safety, but as an option to having nothing to go to. There is nowhere for black kids to go to....

Tajeria: At all!

Tony Brown: Or economics. You can break it down into black or white, or racially, but you also can break it down into economics. Kids who don’t, families that don’t have a lot of money, there are very few options for them to do anything, except to hang out with people that don’t have money. When you don’t have money you all get together to figure out how you all going to get some money!

Tajeria: Basically, it doesn’t always result in a good way to try to get the money!

Tony Brown: We used to have pop bottles, cut lawns, and shovel snow and stuff. We used to have these little things we used to do, but that is not acceptable as it was back in the day.

Tajeria: I think about that a lot. Because that is how I feel. I moved here last year and there is nothing at all for a teenager to do, at all. That’s why a lot of kids get into trouble and then the ones that do good don’t get recognized for the things they’re doing, at all!

Tony Brown: There is an old African thing about you teach one older kid something, and that same person that taught that older kid something, doesn’t teach the younger kid something; the kid they taught is goes and teaches. Then as each kid learns they teach the next kid. That works perfectly in a society that has little physical or economic sources, because it gives the sense of community, number one. But, number two the thing that you need to do that is a location; a secure, clean, environmentally safe location where kids and people in general can come and congregate and share these cultural things. The Afro-American Cultural Center is a place that that should happen, but these in days it’s hard to get people to go there, because there’s a stigma. It’s almost like being ashamed of being black sometimes. But being so proud of being black that you only hang out with...

Tajeria: Black people!

Tony Brown: Black people, ’cause that gives you a sense of pride, but you’re not so prideful that you want to expose your culture to the rest of the community. So it’s kind of a double edged sword.

Tajeria: What would you give, if there is one thing you can tell young kids what kind of advice give them?

Tony Brown: If it don’t feel right doing what you do, jump back and turn it loose. You can’t be educated just because you’re going to school. You have to find what you want to have in your life and if you can’t find it in the system, you have to find it within yourself to go out and really look for what you want to do. Library is free. You can go to the library and learn. If you want to go to college, but you don’t have the academic achievements, to go to college, you can get that yourself. If you want to go to the library and spend time reading and researching things and get the information you need to take your life to the next.... Don’t depend on anybody to give you nothing. You’re supposed to go out and get it. So you have the library is free and anybody that you know that’s doing good in their life, you should not be afraid to walk up to them and say, “How can I make my life better?”

Tajeria: How true.

Tony Brown: That’s what I give to young kids.

Tajeria: Thank you. I want to thank you for your time and your new CD. Did you make this while you were in Belize?

Tony Brown: No, this is made here in the United States. The title of the CD follows what we’re saying. The CD title is Freedom Beyond Recognition. And this is what we have as young black people in the United States; we have freedom beyond recognition. They can’t recognize the freedom we have. So we have to reinstate what those freedoms are to kids, so they can feel proud of it. And say, hey I wrote a song which is on the next CD, it’s called, No Man Gave You Your Freedom, So No Man Can Take It Away. So this freedom that we’re talking about is, you’ve had it from birth and you’ve had it for four hundred years and thousands of years, but nobody told you you had it, or showed you what it was.

Tajeria: Thank you.

Tony Brown: You’re welcome.

Tajeria: I’d like to thank Mr. Tony Brown for his time that he shared with us and the African American Museum in Cedar Rapids, as well, for giving us the opportunity to do this as well and thank him for giving us his new CD.