Farewell to the lioness: Lizz Brown was our huntress, our protector, our savior

Unlike today, St. Louis’ radio airwaves in the 1990s was pregnant with “black talk” and race-specific dialogue. This was largely due to one, small radio station, WGNU, whose owner, the late Chuck Norman, gifted the region with an eclectic line-up of talk show hosts and callers. There was the late, fiery orator Onion Horton, the more measured Hank Thompson, and other hosts like Leonardo Drisdel, who was sentenced to life in prison for murder in 2012. Callers, like the “Couch Potato” and the “Great Kabuddha” were as infamous, colorful and provocative as the hosts.

It was amongst this backdrop that the lioness came to dominate the St. Louis plains. “Living my life as a liberal and lovin’ it” was the mantra of Lizz Brown, attorney, political analyst, activist and host of WGNU’s early morning program “The Wake Up Call.”

With razor-sharp wit, reinforced by a lethal, legal mind, the lioness strategically stalked and destroyed her prey. Be they politicians, elitists, racists, pacifists or conformists, at one time or another, they all found their figurative jugulars exposed to Brown’s intellectual fangs. The male lions of the time, couldn’t compete with Brown’s innate ability to inspire and move the pride into concerted, collective action.

At her urging, hundreds stepped into the middle of Highway 70, in 1999, to protest minority exclusion in highway projects led by attorney Eric E. Vickers. Later, high school students, led by Brown, engaged in the only successful shutdown/occupation of the mayor’s office. Like a succulent gazelle, that mayor, Francis G. Slay, often found himself and/or his administration hunted, threatened and under constant attack from Brown throughout his long tenure.

Brown was often ostracized from the pack. Some considered her too vicious, too uncompromising, too opinionated. In the words of the late, great Frank Sinatra, Lizz sometimes bit off more than she could chew. But that was part and parcel of her self-proclaimed desire to do it “My Way.”  

Criticism aside, Brown’s unconditional love for her pride was undeniable. It was this unabashed devotion that moved her to venture into the wilderness of controversy all alone if necessary. Long before the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown, Lizz was the local provocateur against police crimes and oppression. She publicly chastised police for the 1997 brutal beating of a mentally challenged teen, Gregory Bell, in his own home. She passionately adopted and publicized the case of Julius Thurman, a 19-year-old black man and burglary suspect, who, in 1999, died from a skull fracture while in police custody.

Lizz Brown was willing to put it all on the line, boldly declaring that “Black Lives Matter” long before it became a national catch phrase.

Brown was also a gifted writer and television commentator. She was a frequent contributor to my defunct magazine, “Take Five,” and a columnist for The St. Louis American. The lioness’ fame was compromised, but not extinguished, after WGNU was sold in 2007. She was a guest on NBC, ABC and Fox news programs and became the unofficial go-to legal commentator for MSNBC, CNN, Al Jazeera and the Huffington Post after the 2014 death of Mike Brown. With a deceivingly killer smile, a mane of short, coiled dreads and magnetic stage presence, the lioness’ disruptive voice sought to enact real, progressive change in the national spotlight.

Many of us, myself included, took the lioness for granted. How could someone who appeared so indestructible be vulnerable to a common disease? Personally, I was so caught up in my own struggles, I failed to note the lioness’ failing condition. I was literally floored by the news of her passing (on September 6, 2017) following a lengthy illness. I am embarrassed that a tiny (in retrospect) misunderstanding kept us from connecting in those final days.

Like Martin, Malcolm, Medgar and other icons who died at early ages, we are only left with memories of Lizz Brown’s mighty roar and the impact she made on the plains. She was our huntress, our protector, our savior. Lizz was that “loving liberal” who urged those who seemingly had no power, no voice, to wake up, speak up and act out! She may be gone but I pray that her life and legacy lives on.

It is with a heavy heart, that I bid farewell to our very own lioness, Elizabeth Brown.

Sylvester Brown Jr. is a writer, community activist and executive director of the Sweet Potato Project, a program that seeks to empower low-income youth and adults through land-ownership and urban agriculture.