The Don Brown Experience was one of many bands on the bill at the Black Lives Matter Unity in the Community Concert on June 13.
The band got to play live for the first time since the beginning of the shutdown, bringing a mix of funk, soul, R&B, and gospel.
Potomac Local News got to speak with Don Brown, a figure in the Fredericksburg music scene for decades, about his views on the events that have occurred in the City of Fredericksburg and the rest of the country.
What does an event like the BLM parade and concert mean to you on both a personal and professional level?
What this is is a unity festival. It’s not a protest, it’s a call for unity. Personally, I saw a lot of people doing these protests that were not black, and that encouraged me that the younger generation was taking the lead. I’m 63, I’m old. I can’t do that like I used to. It’s great to see more people are interested in justice, but there are still some caucausians that are stuck in a time where it’s still cool to discriminate. I’m encouraged if you want to do something with unity. I’m with that because it’s time for a changing of the guard.
More people of different races are involved, and that’s how it needs to be. That is what we need because it’s been black people crying about black issues, and with more people in the fight, more voices can be readily heard. I was marching in the eighties, I was with the black power movement in the seventies and eighties, and we’re seeing a new generation taking over.
How did the murder of George Floyd affect you?
It hurt. It hurt just like the hundreds that happened before that, but the issue is it hurt more because we believed this stuff was done with. When it happens on national TV, you know it’s not over. I asked a question on Facebook: ‘How many Floyd’s have there been that weren’t recorded, where there was no video tape?’ Now that there’s all this recording, praise the lord since it’s coming to light.
I’m grateful, but at the same token, I made a comment on Facebook to someone who had the nerve to say that your people don’t understand what it’s like to respect the law. I’ve refrained from speaking from the heart and speaking the Lord’s way. When he said your people, who’s your people? The one making that remark was some old school racist that lumped all black people into one group, so far from reality it hurt my feelings. Floyd brought all this to the forefront again, and it’s about time, simple as that. I think this time it’s different. People that have been mobilized and put in the fight it encourages me, period.
What’s your view of the protests that have been happening in Fredericksburg for the last couple of weeks?
I am so happy, let me just say that, to see especially the peaceful part of young people, and I see the majority are white kids. It makes me so elated to believe that these people are willing to march for what I would consider our fight… When [Obama] was first elected I pretty much watched that on TV, and I thought this is my heart that America has finally come to a place where people can be judged by the content for their character and rather than the color of their skin…
It only took a couple of days before the Republican Congress shot that dream to hell. Because of Mitch McConnell and all the cats like that, they made sure that we knew they would do everything to fight this black president. So, it made me understand once again that those white people in power didn’t have our best interest at heart.
Really, we’re still on some black and white sh_t. It hurt to feel that it still wasn’t equal, that we weren’t being judged by the content of our character, and these old colonials who’d been in power for so long wanted to keep the colloquial foot on our necks. If you know anything about true American history, from the beginning it’s been a foot on the neck. Black people weren’t even judged as humans, we were looked at as some kind of animal. And that’s the way it was carried, so it had gotten to a place where we were more than animals because we’d elected a black president at that time. It gave us a sense of hope. But now I see these white kids out there marching, and it makes me think that these people care about our well being, I can’t be anything but encouraged and elated and hopeful that it’s a new day.
As a long time resident of the city, what was your reaction to the removal of the slave auction block?
I was grateful, I’m going to leave it at that. In the beginning I was not in favor of it. I passed this thing everyday going to school because I lived in a town where schools were segregated. When I was a kid, we saw it everyday, and it didn’t mean much to us as kids until we knew what it was. And in my heart I wanted it to stay because I thought that white people needed a reminder of the terrible legacy of the way they treated black people. But I talked to friends and I went to the city council meetings for the vote. I talked to a white friend of mine Tom Schiff, he’s a guitar maker. He got out there and he made a compelling speech saying if this thing, its presence hurts one of my friends then it hurts me too. And it gave me an epiphany that made me think that I’d been selfish about this.
I had my personal reasons for it to stay, but if my friends, if people are hurt by this then I don’t want it to stay, I need to let go. So when they moved it, it was like okay a new day. Of course I think something needs to go there in its place besides a plaque, almost a monument. A monument like a small obelisk that would represent a new day. Freedom, equality, liberation, all those things that incorporate that we no longer live under the shadow of slavery but we live under the hope of a new day.
How has the pandemic affected your band’s ability to play live?
All the public places that bands would play are no longer functioning. It happened at a good time for me because I’m reorganizing, I’m trying to change my modus operandi. I really want to make a smaller unit, something that’s easier to control, that I can work with. It happened at a good time for me, so it was okay. But until places reopen and people can come out and enjoy stuff like that I’m okay.
I don’t make a living doing this. I do it part time and for fun. Because I’m gifted to do what I do and it’s a part of my make up. Other people may feel differently because they make more money at it. For me it’s more of a hobby I can say. I use it every opportunity I get to reach out to people and also spread a message of hope to people that God is able to do things. My history, I come from penal institutions, drug addictions, the whole nine, God got me through it all. I’m grateful, and I give him the glory for it.
That’s my story, he has been there for me since the beginning and continues to do so. I just published a book of morning meditations, and who would think that a guy like myself who just has a high school education and who’s been through all I’ve been through could ever have the ability to publish a book one day? I have, and here I am, and I’m grateful to tell the story.
Any advice for the protesters?
Keep up the great work, keep it up until justice is done. We need to see a conviction, we need to see police reform, we need to see a day when black men don’t have to be afraid everytime they see some blue lights behind them. We don’t have to be tensed up and worried that we’re going to get stopped, harassed, and possibly killed. We look for a day when mothers and fathers no longer have to tell their children how they have to act when the police stop them. We need the same privileges and opportunities that little white kids get so we can be on an equal ground of perception with people when they see us.
