5 things to know about Kamala Harris' pastor
4. Held several leadership positions in and out of government
While Brown has served as pastor of Third Baptist Church for nearly a half-century, he has had several leadership posts in local government and advocacy organizations. He served as an appointed member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from May 1996 through January 1999 and was elected to a two-year term on the government body that lasted from January 1999 through January 2001.
Brown serves as the president of the San Francisco Branch of the NAACP and is a member of the city’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee. Last summer, the committee put together a report that calls on the city to provide any adult who has identified as black or African American on public documents for at least 10 years and has lived in San Francisco for at least 10 years with reparations.
The recommendations included in the report ask the city to provide a one-time lump sum payment of $5 million to residents who meet the eligibility criteria as well as supplemental income to match the area’s median income, a series of financial services, forgiveness of all educational, personal and credit card debt, guaranteed home, renters and commercial insurance, discounted services at select businesses and funded tuition assistance for colleges and universities.
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Additionally, the report calls for the establishment of an “Afrocentric K-12 school in San Francisco” and a “satellite Historically Black College or University (HBCU) campus in downtown San Francisco.” The overarching ideas of the report stress the importance of righting past wrongs, eliminating what it views as disadvantages faced by black people, creating incentives to ensure the creation of black-owned businesses in addition to attracting black educators to the city.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]
