Brown, Ronald Harmon (1941-1996), became the first African American to head a major United States political party when he was elected chairman of the Democratic Party’s national committee in 1989. He served as chairman until 1993, when he became secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce under President Bill Clinton. He was the first Black person to serve as Commerce Department secretary. Brown died in an airplane crash in Croatia on April 3, 1996, while on department business.
Brown was born on Aug. 1, 1941, in Washington, D.C. He received a bachelor’s degree from Middlebury College in 1962 and a law degree from St. John’s University in New York in 1970. In 1967, after four years in the U.S. Army, Brown became an employee of the National Urban League. He worked for the league first as a social worker in New York City. In 1979, when he left the organization, Brown held the league’s second-highest position as director of its Washington, D.C., office. From 1979 to 1981, Brown was a top aide to U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy. In 1981, he became a partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm of Patton, Boggs & Blow. Brown served as deputy chairman of the Democratic Party’s national committee from 1982 to 1985.
