Born: February 23, 1909 in Norwood, East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana
Died: September 22, 2001
Bio: Evangeline Katherine Johnson Brown was a longtime educator and activist in the Arkansas Delta who served as a plaintiff and witness in Jeffers v. Clinton, a lawsuit that helped create new majority Black districts for the Arkansas House of Representatives and the Arkansas Senate.
After marrying, she became a teacher and settled in Dermott. She chaired the Teachers of English Council for the Arkansas Teachers Association, was a board member of the National Council of English Teachers for nine years, and served as president of the Arkansas Education Classroom Teachers Association and the Desha County Teachers Association.
Brown was active politically, being a local coordinator for Bill Clinton’s 1990 gubernatorial campaign. She also coordinated the first Head Start program for Chicot County and served on the Southeast Community Action Board. In one of her noteworthy fights, she challenged the local hospital for refusing to provide rape examinations to African American women.
The Arkansas Women’s Project offers its Evangeline K. Brown Award to someone who has “made a difference in the local and global community.” Brown was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame in 1994.
You can learn more about the life of Evangeline Katherine Brown at the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.