'The world is a whole lot bigger than your hometown'

There’s a lot of history around Solomon Brown’s hometown of Greenwood, Miss.

North of Greenwood proper, a small church sits alongside a graveyard where legendary bluesman Robert Johnson is purportedly buried. Further on up Money Road stands a stark reminder of the area’s dark history: a replica of Bryant’s Grocery right next door to the original store, a dilapidated, decomposing shell of a building where, in August 1955, a black teenager named Emmett Till allegedly flirted with a white shopkeeper named Carolyn Bryant.

Her husband and his half-brother abducted Till, whose death brought international attention to the area.

That history looms over Brown and others throughout the South, but especially in this area of Mississippi. But while he recognizes the past, Brown won’t let it define him.

“The world is a whole lot bigger than your hometown,” says Brown.

He’s seen that firsthand through his experiences with The American Legion, where he’s found success at Mississippi Boys State and Boys Nation, and in the Legion's Oratorical Contest. Brown earned second place and a $16,000 college scholarship during the 2016 national Oratorical Contest in Indianapolis.

Brown was also elected president pro tempore at the 2015 Boys Nation – a positive note after failing to win office at Boys State.

“I had no idea what the Boys State program was all about at first,” Brown said. “I first participated in The American Legion Oratorical Contest, and I made it to the nationals my sophomore year. Some of the delegates that were there, some of the male delegates, they were talking about how much fun they had at Boys State. … I had no idea what that was.”

When he found out more about the program, he wanted to get involved. Legion Post 200 in Greenwood sponsored him – much to his grandmother’s chagrin.

“My grandma didn’t really like it too much because I was away from home so long,” Brown said. “But I went, had a pretty good time.”

Even if his three campaigns for office – he ran for president, judge and governor – didn’t succeed.

“Some say third time’s the charm, but really didn’t work out that way,” Brown said. “But I still had my head up. Then we had a talent show. Since I’m an orator, I decided to do my oratorical. They loved it. That was a big win for me. So at the end of the week when we decided the delegates for Boys Nation, I had a friend in there telling me how they were voting. When they said my name it was well over a majority. I saw how this speech had so much power, so much meaning to them, even my peers believed it was great.”

Brown maintained that positive attitude when he went to Boys Nation a month later, even though campaigning for president pro tempore wasn’t in his plans at first.

But the more he read about the position’s duties – the president pro tempore runs the Boys Nation senate in the absence of the vice president – the more Brown thought he was the man for the job.

“That election, it was to the T,” Brown said. “There were like 12 contestants, and you can drop out if you don’t have enough votes. It was down to the last four. One of the leading people that had the most votes actually told me, he said, ‘I want you as president pro tempore.’ He was leading in votes by a lot. But he told me – that very second, we were about to vote again, I was about to get dropped, because I had the fewest votes. He told me that he wanted me to be president pro tempore. So he dropped out and told all of his supporters to endorse me. So not only did I get their support, I went from 28 votes to about a good 70. And that’s out of 98. That right there is a shocker. I took it and rolled with it.

“From that moment on … I knew it was planned. You’ve got to go through some kind of hardships for something that (God) really wants you to do. Maybe He didn’t want me to be governor, He didn’t want me to be judge, He wanted me to be the big dog, president pro tempore.”

Brown said his time as president pro tempore taught him how important compromise must be.

“Everybody is not going to enjoy what you say, everybody’s not going to agree with it, some are going to get a little angry, some are going to have your back,” he said. “But at the end of the day, you’ve got to do what’s best for the whole. Right now you might be a little upset, but in the long run, you’ll see the actual benefits. There’s always that rain before the sunshine, my dad always says. Just push through it, we’re going to compromise, we’re going to work together, I’m going to give up a little bit, you’re going to give up a little bit, we both work together for this common good. … I already had a little sense of that because my parents implanted that in me”

His parents’ influence can be seen in Brown’s interest in politics as well. His mother, Curressia, has run for mayor of Greenwood in the past and his father, Troy, has run for state Senate.

“That whole process was interesting,” Brown said. “You’ve got to walk door to door and get them on your side. … Putting everything into it and traveling, getting to know people, it was kind of exciting for me, especially when I was a little kid, because I just liked being out of the house. … I like to get out there, meet new people, be engaged, make connections with people.”

A political career isn’t necessarily Brown’s focus – he plans to go to Mississippi Valley State to study biology and eventually become a heart surgeon – but he can see politics as a side to his career.

Regardless, he hopes to make his hometown a better place, thanks in no small part to his experience at Boys Nation.

“It made me think about myself and my community and how people only know this (place),” he said. “Their parents, their grandparents; they don’t get the exposure, they don’t get the opportunities to get this exposure. … It’s a week that can change your life.”

The 70th session of American Legion Boys Nation is July 22-29 in Washington, D.C. Two Boys State representatives from each of the 49 states participating in the Legion's premier youth program will be selected to attend Boys Nation.


Boys Nation

Boys Nation

At Boys State / Nation, participants learn the rights, privileges and responsibilities of franchised citizens. The training is objective and centers on the structure of city, county and state governments.

Learn more