Mildred Dee Brown

Born 1905-12-20 AL (USA)

Died 1989-11-02
Omaha, NE (USA)

Buried
Omaha, NE (USA)
Forest Lawn Memorial Park

Brown co-founded the Omaha Star, with her husband in 1938 and took a managing role after the couple separated in 1943. After 1945 she ran the paper as owner and publisher until her death in 1989. In 1965 U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, who had commended Brown for her coverage of civil rights, noted her as at that time "the only black woman who was the owner-founder of a black newspaper still in existence." (Johnson quoted in Wirth, noted below)

In 2007 Brown was posthumously inducted into the Nebraska Journalism Hall of Fame. The Omaha Star Building has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of the paper's importance in the history of Omaha, journalism, and the civil rights movement.

Brown is profiled in Eileen Wirth, From Society Page to Front Page: Nebraska Women in Journalism. 2013.

Places Lived

Alabama
Omaha, NE

Author Of

Journalism

Keywords

African-American Stories; Omaha Star Newspaper; Omaha (Nebraska)--History

Occupation

Teacher
Journalist
Co-Founder, Owner, Publisher and Editor, The Omaha Star

Places Worked

The Omaha Star

Honors

United States Goodwill Ambassador (appointed by President Lyndon Johnson, 1960s)
Omaha Business Hall of Fame
Nebraska Journalism Hall of Fame, inducted 2007
Mildred Brown Memorial Strolling Park, near the Omaha Star building (dedicated 2008)
NAACP "Unsung Heroine" service award, 1981
Mildred Brown Scholarship for minority students at Creighton University
The Omaha World Herald (9-2-2018) has reported on a campaign to get the U.S. Postal Service to issue a commemorative stamp honoring Brown.

Associations

Shirl Edward Gilbert, former husband, divorced 1943
Charles B.Washington
Bertha Calloway

Bibliography

See:
Amy Helene Forss, Black Print with a White Carnation: Mildred Brown and the Omaha Star Newspaper: 1938-1989. 2013.
Eileen Wirth, From Society Page to Front Page: Nebraska Women in Journalism. 2013.

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