Rev. Dr. Amos C. Brown Gets NAACP Award For Lifelong Work Combating Racism

SAN FRANCISCO, June 8, 2026 — Long-time civil rights activist Rev. Dr. Amos C. Brown has been chosen as the winner of the 2026 Spingarn Medal in recognition of a lifetime of achievement in the cause of equality, justice and opportunity for Blacks in America. The medal is the highest recognition for achievement bestowed by the NAACP and one of the most prestigious awards in the Black community in the United States.

Rev. Brown, Pastor Emeritus of San Francisco’s historic Third Baptist Church, will receive the Spingarn Medal at a July 22 ceremony in Chicago as part of the closing day of the NAACP’s 117th annual conference. The medal will be presented by Rev. Dr. Frederick Haynes III, Brown’s long-time friend and the son of the pastor who preceded Rev. Brown as pastor of Third Baptist, the oldest Black congregation in the U.S. west of the Mississippi. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will deliver a congratulatory message by video.

“I’m deeply moved by this honor, and it has an even deeper personal meaning to me as it was awarded some 60 years ago to my friend and mentor Medgar Evers, who gave his life for the cause of civil rights in our nation,” Rev. Brown said. “I have spent my life building on the foundation he and so many others laid in the struggle for justice and against racism, a struggle that all of us across our nation must continue to wage.”

Named after the late J.E. Spingarn–then NAACP Chairman of the Board of Directors– this gold medal, awarded annually since 1915, honors “the man or woman of African descent and American citizenship who shall have made the highest achievement during the preceding year or years in any honorable field.” The award is intended both to draw the attention of the general public to African American achievement and to inspire young African Americans.

The Spingarn Medal has been awarded to world-renowned figures including civil rights activists Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, Jesse Jackson, Ralph Bunche. W.E.B. Du Bois and Rosa Parks; artists and authors including Marian Anderson, Maya Angelou, Duke Ellington, Paul Robeson and Langston Hughes; academics including former Morehouse College president Benjamin Mays and historian Henry Louis Gates; and national leaders including former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, and last year’s honoree, former Vice President Kamala Harris.

A Courageous Leader

Often called a “giant among giants” by his peers, Rev. Dr. Amos C. Brown became a civil rights activist while still a teenager in his hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. He was galvanized by the horrific murder of 14-year-old Emmitt Till in 1955; Till and Rev. Brown were the same age. He organized the NAACP’s first youth council that same year, and came under the wing of his mentor Medgar Evers, who introduced Brown to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. A graduate of Morehouse College, Rev. Brown was one of just eight college students to attend the only class ever taught by Dr. King and later helped organize youth from Atlanta traveling to the March on Washington in 1963.

Rev. Brown has served as the pastor of three of the oldest black congregations in the nation: Saint Paul’s Baptist Church in West Chester, Pennsylvania, followed by Pilgrim Baptist Church in St. Paul, Minnesota before becoming the pastor of Third Baptist in 1976.

Rev. Brown has been a central figure in the NAACP for decades, serving on its national board and until recently also holding the role of president of the San Francisco Branch. He represented the NAACP as a delegate to the 2001 United Nations Conference on Race and Intolerance in Durban, South Africa.

“It is with immense pride and deep gratitude that we congratulate Rev. Dr. Amos C. Brown, Sr. on receiving the NAACP’s prestigious Spingarn Medal,” said Dr. Jonathan Z. Butler, President, San Francisco NAACP Branch. “San Francisco has been shaped by his prophetic voice, moral clarity, and relentless commitment to the Black community.”

Rev. Brown extended his civil rights activities into the political realm, serving as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 1996-2001, during the mayoral term of Willie Brown. More recently, he was a central figure on a statewide panel making recommendations on reparations for Blacks in California and held a similar role in San Francisco.

For the past seven years, Rev. Brown has worked to build ties with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, reaching across a long-standing divide to establish a fellowship of faith with the Church. Working closely with the Church’s late president Russell M. Nelson, Rev. Brown has initiated an annual fellowship sponsored by the Church to bring white and black high school and college students to Ghana to see “ground zero” of the African slave trade, and from that experience encourage them to participate in global inter-racial humanitarian programs.

“For decades, Rev. Dr. Brown has stood at the intersection of faith, justice, and action,” said Dr. Butler. “From his work alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Civil Rights Movement to his transformational leadership at Third Baptist Church to his unwavering advocacy for voting rights, reparations, economic justice, and human dignity, his life has modeled what courageous leadership looks like.”

In looking back on his long history of faith and activism in the cause of justice and humanity, Rev. Brown issued a stark warning about the state of America today.

“The Spingarn Award was created to celebrate Black progress, but in America today we are watching that progress be deliberately dismantled by the administration’s openly racist policies and those who support them,” Brown said. “We have fought too long to allow these forces to push us back, disenfranchise us, and deny us our God-given rights. In the face of this evil, we must stand taller, shout louder and work harder than ever.”