Growing Up To Be Mayor: The True Story of Mayor Lee Brown, First African American Mayor of Houston (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780615806075)

Lee Brown's life has been one of vision, tenacity, commitment, hard work, and social consciousness. He has spent his professional career working to empower people and communities and to improve their safety, security, and quality of life. Cabinet member, educator, mayor, and author, his peers recognized his leadership when he was elected President of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and to the Advisory Board of the United States Conference of Mayors. Dr. Brown's life is an inspiration. Born to migrant farm workers in rural Oklahoma, his birth certificate read, "Baby Brown." From that humble beginning, he rose to the pinnacle of American politics, serving in the Cabinet of the President of the United States during the Clinton administration and later as the first African American Mayor of Houston, Texas, the fourth largest city in America. Dr. Brown worked his way through college and received the best public education this country has to offer. He earned a bachelor of science degree in criminology from Fresno State University, a master's degree in sociology from San Jose State University, and both a master's and doctorate in criminology from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Brown started his police career as a beat cop with the San Jose, California Police Department where he developed one of the nation's first police community-relations programs. He served as Sheriff of Multnomah County, Oregon and pioneered the concept of Team Policing before being promoted to Director of the county's Department of Justice Services, a department comprised of all of the county's criminal justice agencies. In 1978 Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson selected him to serve as Atlanta's Commissioner of Public Safety. He was responsible for the city's Police, Fire, Corrections, and Civil Defense Departments. After solving a high-profile case, he was selected by Houston Mayor Kathy Whitmire to serve as Houston's Police Chief and reform that city's troubled police department. Dr. Brown pioneered the concept of Community Policing and developed the Houston Police Department into one of the finest law enforcement agencies in the entire country. Dr. Brown and his late wife, Yvonne, had four children and eleven grandchildren. His current wife, Frances, is a retired educator, having served for many years with the city's Independent School District. She is the mother of one daughter and two grandchildren. Dr. and Mrs. Brown reside in Houston.