NY Latino Film Board

07/20/2026

Good stuff

07/15/2026

07/14/2026

This is a good thing

06/28/2026

We have lost a giant

Tony Brown has passed away. Brown was an academic, businessman, and a trailblazer in journalism. Long before Black faces regularly sat in broadcast news chairs, Tony Brown was there. A native of West Virginia, he would make his way to Detroit and in 1959 graduated from Wayne State University. He received his masters from the university in 1961. By 1962, he became a drama critic for the Detroit Courier newspaper. In 1971, he became executive producer (and sometime host) of the monthly TV program Black Journal. The show, which had aired on the television network’s NET and then PBS since 1968 was produced and hosted by Brown from 1970. It was renamed Tony Browns Journal in 1977, it began on commercial television in syndication from 1978, then moved to PBS in 1982.
Along the way he served as (founding) Dean of Howard University’s School of Communication, he later served as Dean for Hampton’s School of Communication. In the late 80s, he would produce and direct the film, The White Girl. He was a long-time proponent of buying Black and support of Black business. Brown was 93.