Ronald Harmon Brown
Captain, U.S. Army

Ronald Harmon Brown was born on 1 August 1941 in Washington, DC, and raised in Harlem, NY.

Brown was a graduate of Middlebury College in Middlebury, VT, and was the first African -American member of Sigma Phi Epsilon, a men's national collegiate fraternity.

Brown joined the U.S. Army in 1962, after graduating from Middlebury, and served in South Korea and Europe, the same year he married Alma Arrington. He was discharged in 1967 at the rank of Captain.

He was Deputy Executive Director for Programs and Governmental Affairs of the National Urban League; he was the Deputy Campaign Manager for Senator Edward Kennedy and Chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1989-1992.

In 1993, during President Clinton's first term, Brown became the first African-American to hold the position of Secretary of Commerce. While on an official trade mission, Brown and 34 other passengers on an Air Force CT-43 crashed into a mountainside in Croatia killing all on board.

Death and Burial

Ronald Harmon Brown died on 3 April 1996 in Croatia. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, VA.