Collection Focus: Bishop Robert R. Brown Letters

Bishop Robert R. Brown was a civil rights advocate. He served as a trustee of the American Church Institute for Negroes, an organization charged with the coordination of Church-affiliated schools established to educate African Americans in the South. Along with other religious leaders in the Central Arkansas community such as Rabbi Ira Sanders, Brown spoke out against Governor Orval Faubus' handling of the Little Rock school crisis in September 1957.

Brown authored one book on the desegregation crisis, entitled Bigger Than Little Rock, in 1958. The Bishop Robert R. Brown Letters include letters, telegrams, bulletins, programs, newspaper clippings, and speeches concerning the school crisis.

The bulk of the correspondence is written to Bishop Brown. Correspondents include Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lyndon B. Johnson, religious leaders, and other concerned parties. There are also materials related to the "Day of Prayer," which occurred on October 12, 1957 to pray for peace and tolerance. The collection also includes speeches by other community religious leaders as well as several bulletins from Central High School during the period.

Bishop Robert R. Brown was born June 16, 1910 in Garden City, Kansas. Brown received his B.A. in 1933 from St. Mary's University and his B.D. in 1937 from Virginia Theological Seminary. He was ordained in the Episcopal Church as a deacon in 1937 and a priest later that year. From 1937 to 1947 he served as priest for three congregations in Texas, and from 1947 to 1955 he was a priest in Richmond, Virginia.

Brown was consecrated Bishop Coadjutor of Arkansas in 1955, and became the ninth Bishop of Arkansas in 1956. He held this position until his retirement in 1970. Brown died on February 5, 1994 in Little Rock, Arkansas.

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