Charlie Brown was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the third child and second son of storekeeper Charles Manley Brown Sr., and Mamie Susan "Sook" Fickett Brown. His father died in 1904, five months before the birth of their fifth child. Charles Sr.'s father, Henry Hart Brown, had been a journalist, lawyer, and politician, serving several terms in the Alabama state legislature and one term as sheriff. A graduate of
Georgia Tech, Brown was a
commissioner of
Fulton County, Georgia (where Atlanta is the
county seat) from 1941 to 1948, and from 1966 to 1979. He served as
chairman of the commission from 1945 to 1947 and 1976 to 1978, and at other times during 1966, 1968, 1971, and 1974. He also served as a
state senator from Fulton County in the
Georgia General Assembly from 1957 to 1964, and retired from politics in 1979. He unsuccessfully ran for
mayor of Atlanta in 1949, 1953, and 1961. He was touted as a candidate in 1957, and would-be supporters mailed out thousands of postcards to support a write-in vote for him, but he never entered the race officially that year. He served on the
Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority which oversees
Grady Memorial Hospital. He was involved in many other programs, including starting both
MARTA and
Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium. He was also involved in the creation of the
Fulton County Airport in west Atlanta, which was named
Charlie Brown Field in his honor.
Personal life Brown married Elise Anderson. They had two daughters. ==References==