Oscar Brown Jr.

Oscar Brown Jr. was born on October 10, 1926 on Chicago’s southside to a father who was a successful attorney and a real estate broker and a mother who was social worker and later homemaker. Brown was a man of many talents. Although he was a self proclaimed “entertainer,” he became a pioneer in the entertainment industry by writing and performing songs, poems, and plays about the celebration of African-American life, social justice, and racism, right at the time when the civil rights movement in the ‘60s was unfolding. Perhaps the title “civil rights activist entertainer” would be more appropriate. He enjoyed entertaining and educating his listeners and even coined the word “edutainment” when describing his approach and style. His prefered musical genre was mainly jazz, blues, folk music, and gospel.