Elaine Brown - Early Life

Early Life

Brown grew up in the ghetto of North Philadelphia, with a single, working mother and an absent father. Despite desperate poverty, Brown’s mother worked to provide for Elaine’s private schooling, music lessons, and nice clothing. As a young woman, Elaine had few African-American friends but spent most of her time with her white friends. After graduating from Philadelphia High School for Girls, she studied at Temple University for less than a semester. After withdrawing from Temple Brown moved to Los Angeles, California to try being a professional songwriter.

Upon arriving in California with little money and few contacts, Brown got work as a cocktail waitress at the strip club The Pink Pussycat. While working at the Pink Pussycat she met Jay Kennedy, a married white fiction writer, and the two became lovers. Kennedy was the first person to politicize and radicalize Brown. Because of the thorough education on the Civil Rights Movement, Capitalism, and Communism, that Kennedy gave her, Brown became involved with the Black Liberation Movement. After living together for a brief time in the Hollywood Hills Hotel, the pair parted ways. After this pivotal relationship, Brown's involvement in politics grew and she began working for the radical newspaper Harambee. Soon after, Brown became the first representative of the Black Student Alliance to the Black Congress in California. In April 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior, she attended her first meeting of the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panther Party.