Joseph Brown, S.J., (A&S ’68) Fulfills His Father’s Dream
Months before Joseph Brown, S.J., (A&S ’68) joined the Society of Jesus, he received a scholarship to attend Saint Louis University in 1962, and his late father was overjoyed.
“It’s one of my most important recollections,” he said. “As a young man in the 1940s, my father, Floyd Brown, was denied access to SLU because it was segregated. Some Jesuits fought against the policy and urged the University to desegregate, which it did.”
Sparked by a homily by Claude Heithaus, S.J., calling for the University to admit Black students in February 1944, SLU pivoted in the autumn of the same year from being an all-white institution to becoming the first university in a former slave state to integrate Black faculty, staff and students. Fast forward two decades, and the pathway to Jesuit higher education, which Floyd could not pursue because of his race, was available for his adult child.
That generational shift was not lost on either father or son.
“My father was so proud when I graduated in 1968,” Brown said. “He and two other fathers of Jesuit graduates took us out to lunch, which was the first time I ever ate at a restaurant with my father.”
When Brown joined the Jesuits and began his studies at SLU, he said the only question his dad asked was whether he would lose the scholarship if he decided not to become a Jesuit. The Jesuit interviewers told them that the scholarship would remain viable.
My favorite memory about going to SLU is that I fulfilled my father’s dreams.”
Joseph Brown, S.J., (A&S ’68)
“I assured my dad I would remain committed,” Brown said. Having lived the next 63 years in the Society of Jesus, 53 of them as an ordained priest, he kept his word.
Brown credits his mentors, the late William Wade, S.J., and the late George Klubertanz, S.J., as two of the most powerful teachers he ever had. After taking a class in the theater department and using what he learned, Brown became the founding theater arts major coordinator at Creighton University, he said. Other Jesuits also played key roles in his SLU experience.
“The late Thomas Swift, S.J., helped me as a mentor, spiritual director and advocate, and made sure I was ordained a priest. I also formed lifelong friendships with classmates like John Foley, S.J., and Michael Barber, S.J., who are still associated with the University.”
In 1970, Brown returned to SLU for theological studies and, while a student, was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1972. “My father, even with terminal cancer, was able to attend that ceremony,” he said.
“My favorite memory about going to SLU,” Brown added, “is that I fulfilled my father’s dreams.”