A Tribute to Claudine Brown

I became the Executive Director of the Kentucky Foundation for Women, a private philanthropy focusing on feminist art for social change, in September 1998 and met Claudine that October at my first national meeting of Grantmakers in the Arts. She stood out as a leader with her radiant smile and formidable presence. As I came to learn, she also stood out as a connector, a steadfast ally to all who believe in the power of art and culture to create a more just and beautiful world.

At first there were only a few of us – maybe a dozen. We gathered with Claudine at breakfast roundtables and impromptu meetings in hotel halls. Our numbers grew. After the levees breached in 2005, many more GIA members came to see the power of arts and culture to advance justice and equity.

Claudine promoted cross-sector funding before we knew to call it that. She convened us at the Council on Foundations and hosted meetings with social justice funders who weren’t so sure why arts and culture matter. She practiced inclusion before we had a name for that, too. We were African Americans. Native Americans, Asians, Latino/as, urban, rural, straight and LGBTQ. Together, we honed the critical importance of working across differences that can divide us.

In 2008 we organized the first Social Justice preconference at the GIA Conference in Atlanta, welcoming all committed to justice and equity, and many funders participated. The next year’s conference was in New York, and Claudine hosted a social justice networking dinner in her apartment. The evening ended in spontaneous story sharing and singing. Later I was surprised (at first) to run into her in rural Tennessee at the Highlander Center’s 75th anniversary. There, we realized we both knew many of the same civil rights songs, and gospel music, too.

In 2010 Claudine went back to work at the Smithsonian, leaving the field of art, culture, and social justice funding a lot stronger than she found it. She bade us to stay connected and keep working, and we did our best. With strong social justice advocates on GIA’s staff, board, and membership roster, many of us who learned from Claudine helped form the independent, but allied, Art x Culture x Social Network. The Network connects funders, artists, activists, and advocates of all backgrounds and identities to work together to create new pathways and coalitions for positive change.

Bernice Johnson Reagon reminds us that, “we who believe in freedom cannot rest.” Claudine has gone to her well-deserved rest, but we who believe in her legacy cannot rest yet.