by Coron Brinson
Our Connection
I am so excited to continue our series of highlighting women in Oakland who are doing the work of educating our youth and shedding light on the impact of school closures on Oakland youth and communities. In this piece, I’m highlighting the
fabulous and phenomenal —Mrs. Oral Lee Brown.
As an Oakland educator and thinking about the Black women I’ve encountered in my time, my mind immediately goes to Mrs. Oral Lee Brown. I initially met her back in 2015 while serving the community as a parent organizer for a California-based education-focused non profit. She has had a lasting impact on my work as a Black male educator in Oakland.
How Mrs. Brown and Dirk crossed paths
I met Brown at the headquarters of her foundation located at 9901 MacArthur Boulevard. Our ancestor Dirk was with us in this space. She met him almost 30 years ago at that time when he was well into his education advocacy journey. He aided her with developing a petition to open a charter school in Oakland. She remembers, “He did all of the paperwork and we got approved but it just wasn’t what I needed at the time,” said Brown. She had a bigger endeavor in her future, which was opening up a boarding school in East Oakland. A boarding school, she believes, would help fill in the gaps that plague the children of East Oakland such as the lack of parental support, truancy, drugs, crime and poverty.
Mrs. Brown’s Beginning
Brown arrived at the Greyhound Station on a cold and rainy day in Oakland, California on January 1st, 1963 from Batesville, Mississippi, with only $76.00 in her pocket. She grew up in a big family with 12 siblings. Families were intentionally big, because children were the hands of the cotton fields down south.
Her brother, EQ, a Korean War Veteran, was the first person in the family to move to California. He would send money home to his family, to ensure they did not suffer financially due to his departure. Much like many Black and Brown families throughout this world, each sibling continued to save and fund each family member’s eventual migration to California. By 1965, all of her siblings had left Mississippi, except for her mother.
Now in East Oakland, there were thriving Black communities along East 14th (International Blvd). “When I say East Oakland, I mean south of MacArthur Boulevard (Brookfield, Sobrante Park, in the Avenues) and West Oakland were the areas and neighborhoods that Black folks could live in,” said Brown. These strict Black neighborhoods were the result of stringent redlining and segregation that existed and have lasting implications in the city.
The Promise (Brookfield Elementary)
“God please get me out of Mississippi,” said Brown. ”If he got me out of Mississippi, I’d do whatever he wanted me to do.
Brown had an office at 8331 E. 14th Street and everyday, she would go into the neighborhood corner store and purchase a Pepsi and bag of peanuts. On September 17, 1987, her daily stop at the corner store was an unusual one, as she encountered a little girl who asked for a quarter. Brown only had a $5.00 bill on her and the little girl to come to the store with her. The young child picked up Wonder bread, bologna and cheese. This was very unique, because most kids would’ve purchased candy, but not this young lady! After purchasing the items, Brown and the girl parted ways but she left such an impact on Brown, so much so, that she was determined to find her!
Brown went to Brookfield Elementary, the neighborhood school, in search of the little girl. Despite not finding her, Brown decided to stay involved with the school and decided to adopt the first grade class in 1987. Brown’s vision became to support these at-risk students in whatever ways that were essential to gaining a quality education. From there, she started a trust account with Home Savings of America and would annually deposit $10,000.00 of her personal income to “educate her babies.”
Her salary was only $45,000 a year, but she committed to $10,000 a year for this class at Brookfield Elementary. In her 36 years of working, she never missed an annual deposit into the trust except in 2008 when the recession hit forcing her to only contribute $5,000.
Only 6 out of 23 students in that first grade class had fathers in the immediate household. By the 90’s cocaine, heroin and crack left many kids with unstable homes. At the high school graduation of that 1987 adopted first grade class, an outstanding 19 out of 23 (83%) students went on to college. Many of them have gone on to medical school, received master’s degrees, and are pursuing law school. A donor and believer in Brown’s work approached her and said, “Mrs. Brown, you will never find that girl because she was an angel from God.” Ironically a colleague that very evening said the very same thing, Brown recalls.
Mrs. Brown’s Legacy Today
Brown is the founder and executive director of the Oral Lee Foundation. The foundation is a non-profit that exists for the specific purpose of providing educational assistance and scholarships to underprivileged children in the Oakland area. The foundation is always seeking tutors and mentors and currently serves students on Wednesday’s from 1:00- 5:00 pm and Saturday’s from 9:00 am- 12:00 noon. The foundation also gives scholarships for higher education and enhances the lives of its students with programs focused on STEM, coding, college visits and attendance monitoring.
Mrs. Brown’s Legacy Today
Brown is the founder and executive director of the Oral Lee Foundation. The foundation is a non-profit that exists for the specific purpose of providing educational assistance and scholarships to underprivileged children in the Oakland area. The foundation is always seeking tutors and mentors and currently serves students on Wednesday’s from 1:00- 5:00 pm and Saturday’s from 9:00 am- 12:00 noon. The foundation also gives scholarships for higher education and enhances the lives of its students with programs focused on STEM, coding, college visits and attendance monitoring.
Throughout the years, Mrs. Brown has been awarded a plethora of recognitions, honors, and awards and some include being named Woman of the Year by Senator Don Perata and Assembly member Audie Bock in 2000, The Pioneer Achievement Award by the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Humanitarian of the Year by the East Bay Agency for Children and many, many more.
THE FUTURE
Brookfield Elementary is a school that’s constantly on the chopping block to be closed by Oakland Unified School District. It’s been spared another year, but the future is not looking bright. Brown has a solution to disrupt the system of inequality and failure that plagues Brookfield.
For many of the students at Brookfield, the foundation was the first time many of them felt loved and heard from an adult.
The foundation also launched partnerships with UC Berkeley and Cal State East Bay to offer tutoring Monday through Thursday from 3:30-7:30 p.m to her students. They would rotate current students from these institutions to support and tutor the youth of the foundation.
As school closures continue to plague the city of Oakland, what can we as parents, teachers, scholars, and community members do to reverse this horrible trend? How can we begin to cultivate relationships with neighborhood schools, educational organizations, and other change agents within Oakland to ensure our student’s academic needs are met? Oral Lee Brown is one way to engage with the community, but how can we co create an reimagined Oakland public educational ecosystem? Let’s continue this dialogue as a community!
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Support Mrs. Oral Lee Brown’s vision by donating your time or money to this most important cause. Visit the foundation’s website for more details on how you can support!
Join us in the spirit of Juneteenth on June 20th at 2 p.m. PST/5 p.m. EST when we celebrate with Mrs. Oral Lee Brown LIVE on YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter and keep the conversation going!