Tampa Tribune
-----ABE BROWN ------PRISON MINISTRY

Abe 'Can't Keep Him Down' Brown
By MICHELLE BEARDEN
mbearden@tampatrib.com
Published: Oct 25, 2001,

TAMPA - The electronic gates open with a grinding noise. It's an eerie sound but familiar, almost reassuring, to the Rev. Abe Brown.

On this Thursday night, the stately, 74-year-old Tampa minister exudes quiet confidence as he leads his Bible-toting entourage from a world of freedom to barbed-wire confinement.

When he began this work 25 years ago, there were just 18 state prisons. Now there are 67, stretching from south of Miami to the Florida-Georgia border. Twice a month, like clockwork, Brown loads up two old Greyhound buses with volunteers and families of inmates and heads to one of them.

Tonight, they visit the Hillsborough Correctional Institution for youthful offenders, tough kids ages 14 to 18 who have been sentenced as adults. The evangelical volunteers have but 90 minutes to testify, to sing, to preach, to try to touch these young lives. Maybe, just maybe, they'll win a soul or two for Jesus.

Sixty-three inmates fill the small prison chapel. White, black, Hispanic and Asian, they look so much alike: close-cropped hair, colorful tattoos snaking up their arms, searching gazes that drop to the floor when met by a stranger.

``This is a real good crowd,'' comments Jean Bright, who works in the prison chaplain's office. ``Double what you'd normally get. It's because Abe is here. They want to hear him.''

The boys sign in and file into the pews. Some slouch, feigning indifference. Others read their Bibles, silently mouthing the passages. A choir of inmates dressed in denim shirts strides purposefully to the front of the sanctuary, eager to lead the congregants in rollicking gospel songs.

The service moves quickly. The dozen volunteers from Brown's prison crusade sit in the front row, taking turns with spoken and musical testimonies.

Finally, Brown rises, the last speaker. By the time he steps to the front, the crowd is pumped. But this preacher won't whip them up with any fire-and-brimstone rantings. His mellifluous voice is as comforting as hot chocolate on a winter's night. They have to listen carefully to hear everything he has to say.

In his life before Christian service, Brown was a football coach. For 23 years, he led teams at Tampa's Middleton (his alma mater), the original Blake and Jefferson high schools. Then, for 15 years, he served as dean of boys at Chamberlain High School. His whole life has been directed toward guiding children.

Start On Your Knees

That's how the prison ministry began. In 1976, he learned one of his former players had been arrested for murder. Horace Jolly had killed a cabdriver and would serve life in prison.

News of the arrest left Brown so distraught, he cried. He had taught the boy about football but not about life. He vowed to intervene in young lives, both inside and outside prison walls, and teach the real truth.

For him, the real truth is Jesus. On this night, he captures the attention of the inmates, some too young to shave, with a football analogy. He speaks a language he knows they will understand.

``Like football, life is broken up into two halves. So you messed up the first half. That's why you're here,'' he tells them. ``Here's your chance to play the second half right. You can start right now, right here, tonight.''

The way up with the Lord is down, he says. Start on your knees and you'll land on your feet. He says they have plenty of time to talk to God, ``more time here than you'll ever have on the outside.''

In 12 minutes, Brown is finished. He invites new believers to come forward in a show of commitment. Two-thirds of the pews empty. The boys get a hug and a letter encouraging them to read the Bible. Each boy who provides a name will hear from the ministry in the near future.

A year ago, Vivian Ross signed on as a volunteer, joining 250 people who donate untold hours to the ministry. It was her first experience going into a prison. She still shudders at the sound of the closing steel doors.

A Mary Kay Cosmetics consultant by day, Ross believes her caring presence among inmates can make a difference. Her faith in God is matched only by her faith in Abe Brown.

``He's taught me that this work is important,'' Ross says. ``He's not asking us to do anything that he wouldn't do. So I'm grateful to be part of this.''

A Fight For Life

Abe Brown's work nearly ended last year.

In April 2000, his doctor looked him in the eye and told him the news was bad. Real bad. He had soft-tissue sarcoma, a type of cancer that used to kill all of its victims. But a new kind of aggressive chemotherapy gave him a fighting chance.

Only briefly did Brown question his maker. Why let me die now, Lord? I have so much left to do.

As he lay in his hospital bed at St. Joseph's Hospital, not far from where he grew up near Belmont Heights, Brown faced his mortality. He felt a little guilty about spending a lifetime telling people to trust in the Lord, then experiencing his own doubts in time of trouble. Finally he followed his own advice and put the matter in God's hands. He felt peace once again.

When word spread that one of Tampa's favorite sons was gravely ill, Mary E. May sprang into action for her mentor. The director of a Tampa prayer ministry, she organized a 12-hour prayer ``lock-in'' focused on Brown's recovery. Churches across Florida offered spiritual comfort.

May says Brown is the most humble man she has ever met. She compares him to Jesus, a comparison that most certainly would embarrass Brown. But she speaks for many who know him, saying his enduring and unblemished record as an educator, preacher and community leader puts him in a special category.

``I put all my worrying into prayer,'' May says. ``We just prayed that man back into good health.''

Indeed, on this sunny day at his modest brick home on the Hillsborough River, Brown is glowing, a picture of vitality. He doesn't have time for his pontoon boat, moored to the dock in the back. But every day, he walks four miles, 15 minutes per mile. He has fully recovered from the debilitating effects of chemotherapy. Doctors have pronounced him cancer free.

``All this energy you say I have, it comes from him,'' Brown says, looking heavenward. ``I believe he left me here for a purpose. I don't have any time to waste.''

Chrystal Hammond, who has worked for the prison ministry for nine years, is one of only two paid staff members. She wasn't surprised when Brown started coming back into the office soon after his diagnosis, despite doctor's orders to slow down. That's why she calls him Abe ``Can't Keep Him Down'' Brown.

``He's taught me there is no situation too large or hard for God,'' she says.

Brown lives in the same house he purchased in 1974 for $46,000. He and his wife of 35 years, Altamese, have three daughters - one each from a previous marriage and one together.

She didn't know she would end up as a preacher's wife. Brown was an educator when they married. And she wasn't pleased when her husband heeded the call to the ministry, first through the prison crusade, then in 1993 as the interim pastor at First Baptist Church of College Hill.

It was supposed to be a temporary assignment. He didn't even take a salary for the first two years, putting his $600 weekly pay toward the church's $288,000 debt. At that time, there were about 115 members. He asked them to dig deep in their pockets to pay off the mortgage.

In two years, membership grew and the debt was paid off. Brown eventually took half pay, then finally, last year, began accepting an $800 weekly salary.

Church membership numbers more than 1,300. A youth pastor is now on staff, and plans are under way to get government funding to help build a retirement home.

From Humble Beginnings

Brown's mama would be proud. She cleaned houses in Palma Ceia, taking the streetcar from their little house in the country to where the rich folks lived. He never knew his daddy, who left home when he was 3. His male influence came from his stepfather, an older roofer who treated Brown like his own.

The youngest of three, Brown was the first in his family to finish high school and go on to college. This was the 1940s, a time when few black men attended college, even fewer finished. A football scholarship made it possible for him to attend Florida A&M, where he played center and linebacker.

Close to graduation, an instructor gave him advice that would change Tampa's landscape. He encouraged his students to return to their communities and give back. Make your hometown a better place to live, he said.

So Brown, who used to shine shoes for the used-car salesmen on Florida Avenue, came home. He rolled up his sleeves and hasn't slowed since.

``He's always had leadership qualities, on the football field and off,''says lifelong friend Oscar Johnson Jr., a former Blake coach and now a fellow preacher. ``He's not happy unless he's helping someone. And he's got a magnetic power, the kind that encourages people to get involved.''

The prison work is his passion. Unfortunately, Brown acknowledges, it's not the most popular ministry. This year's budget, raised by donations, came to $250,000. The money pays for assistance programs for families of inmates, two halfway houses and other support services. It also pays the salaries of the two staff members; Brown is not one of them. His work is unpaid.

Amid fears the wilting economy would dry up financial support, the board of directors last year changed the name from Prison Crusade to Abe Brown Ministries. Brown wasn't too keen on that at first but finally acknowledged that it would be good business to trade on his reputation in the community.

``The corporate world doesn't feel entirely comfortable about donating to a prison ministry,'' he acknowledges. ``The attitude, more often than not, is they made their bed, and they have to lie in it. But we can't forget about their families or the fact most will be returning to our communities one day.''

The phone rings. Brown answers it and listens patiently to a woman recently released from jail. She's living with her mother, and they're constantly fighting. She has a 13-year-old daughter giving her even more problems.

Brown's voice is gentle and warm. He counsels the woman to stay at home, saying any foundation is better than none at all. He promises to bring over a box of groceries later that day. They will pray together, he says.

``I don't hide. My number's always been listed in the book,'' he says, after hanging up the phone. ``People find me like this all the time. Everyone has a story.''

Brown says his story is simple: Trust God, live right, help your neighbor.

When it's his time to leave this Earth, he wants to be remembered as a man who received much from the Lord, and gave it back tenfold to his fellow humans.

Horace Jolly is still in prison. He has served more than 25 years. Brown still visits him from time to time.

``I'm just doing what I was called to do,'' he says.