Faces of Rappahannock

Name: Raymond Lewis Brown

Age: 76

Birthplace: Amissville

Family: Wife, Alberta; children, Raymond Jr., Ronda, Regina, Ryan and Rayland; 11 grandchildren; seven great-grandchildren

Job: Quality control inspector, among many other responsibilities, at Fast Fabricators in Remington; Brown is also vice chair of the Rappahannock County Planning Commission and the County Electoral Board

Favorite movie: Any Western

Favorite reading material: National Geographic

Favorite foods: Lemon pie, coconut cake, caramel cake and barbecue ribs

Hobbies: Collecting coins; he used to ride motorcycles

First waking thought: "Gee, I'm lucky to wake up," he said with a laugh.

What brings a smile to your face: Happy children; Brown was a foster parent for many years as well as a Boy Scout and Girl Scout leader

Raymond Brown made history about a dozen years ago when he became the first black person to serve on the Rappahannock County Planning Commission.

Jackson District Supervisor Ron Frazier appointed the born-and-raised Amissville resident, who is still the only black person to have served on the commission. In January, Brown was reappointed as the commission's vice chair.

Brown, 76, said he had never given much thought to serving on the planning commission until Frazier asked him about it. He had already been a member of the Rappahannock County Electoral Board since 1992.

He says he enjoys serving on the planning commission and electoral board because "you get to meet a lot of the people of the county."

Things have changed a lot in Rappahannock since the days when Brown was growing up in Amissville.

He attended Amissville Elementary School during the days of segregation when black children in the county were schooled only through seventh grade. He went to Dean Training Center in Manassas for an additional two years, but could not afford it any longer.

"The only thing that really bothered me was the white kids had a bus and drove right past us," Brown said. "And we had to walk three miles to school."

The county's schools were segregated in those days, but Brown's neighborhood was not. He grew up with white friends as neighbors.

"We played together and swam together and all that stuff," he said. "I think if the parents had left the kids alone, we would have been fine. There was no TV then, so those things (racism) had to be taught at home."

Brown left Rappahannock in 1952 when he was drafted into the Army during the Korean War. He served four years in the Army and, in 1956, enlisted in the Air Force.

He spent 20 years in the Air Force as an air-craft dispatcher and instructor for senior officers. He served at bases in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Austria, Germany, Japan and Thailand.

The Air Force also gave Brown an opportunity to finish his schooling.

"Military service was the best thing that ever happened to me, other than my wife," he said.

Brown said he never spent much time considering the possibility of ending segregation until Martin Luther King Jr. came along. He was in the military by then, and the military had been desegregated in the 1940s.

Brown said he was planning to retire in Denver, where he spent a great deal of his career in the Air Force, but moved back to Rappahannock to be closer to family. His wife, Alberta, is also a Rappahannock native. The couple have been married 52 years.