Alvin A. Brown, the first African American mayor of Jacksonville, Florida was born on December 15, 1961, in Beaufort, South Carolina and was reared with his four siblings by his mother and grandmother. His formative years were spent at St. Helena Junior High School, and he later graduated from Beaufort High School, where he actively participated in basketball.
Brown moved to Jacksonville in 1981 and enrolled in Edward Waters College (now University), where he was initiated into the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity. Brown transferred to Jacksonville University and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration in 1985. He earned an Executive Master of Business Administration degree there in 1989 and then completed a Management Program Certificate at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
From 1992 to 1993, Brown worked in Washington, DC, on the staff of the Clinton-Gore transition team and in various positions in the Clinton administration, including the U.S. Department of Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, and the Agriculture Department.
In 2005, Brown served as the executive director of the Bush/ Clinton “Katrina Interfaith Fund,” a philanthropic $20 million fund aimed at rebuilding churches throughout the Gulf Coast devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
In 2011, Brown was elected the seventh mayor of Jacksonville, Florida and the first African American to hold the post. He was also the first Democratic mayor in 20 years. During his tenure, where he managed a budget of 1.6 billion dollars and was responsible for 7,509 city employees, Brown oversaw a decline in the city’s unemployment rate by providing companies with incentives to relocate in Jacksonville. As a result more than 3,900 new jobs were created.
Because of his success in running Jacksonville, he was invited to deliver the keynote address at Jacksonville University Spring Commencement in 2012 and accepted an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters. In addition, Edward Waters University also awarded Brown an honorary doctorate.
In 2015, however Republican Lenny Curry defeated Brown in his bid for re-election. Curry received 51.3%, or 103,626 votes, while Brown received 48.7%, or 98,353 votes. After his defeat Brown took and completed a visiting fellowship at the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service in Washington, D.C. in 2016.
In 2018, former Mayor Brown participated with 200 protesters who marched to Jacksonville’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office where he spoke against the Donald Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents when they illegally enter the U.S. In 2020, Brown was named a candidate for U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Biden administration but did not receive the post.
In 2024, Brown graduated with a Master of Divinity from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He was ordained as a minister at the Saint Joseph Missionary Baptist Church in Jacksonville and is currently a member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.
The Honorable Alvin A. Brown is married to Santhea L. Hicks and they are the parents of adult sons Joshua Andrew Brown and Jordan Latham Brown.
Do you find this information helpful? A small donation would help us keep this available to all. Forego a bottle of soda and donate its cost to us for the information you just learned, and feel good about helping to make it available to everyone.
BlackPast.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our EIN is 26-1625373. Your donation is fully tax-deductible.
1985 Commencement Program, Jacksonville University, Jacksonville, Florida, Hope Scheff, Special Collections Coordinator, Carl S. Swisher Library, [email protected], 2024; Deirdre Conner, “Profile of Jacksonville mayoral candidate Alvin Brown,” https://www.jacksonville.com/story/news/politics/2011/02/20/profile-jacksonville-mayoral-candidate-alvin-brown/15913664007/; “Former Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown to run for Congress,” https://www.news4jax.com/news/2018/01/31/former-jacksonville-mayor-alvin-brown-to-run-for-congress/.
