[3] Anderson's son, Willard L. Brown, became the first black judge in West Virginia and represented the state chapter of the NAACP in a case of racial discrimination in public schools.

As a teenager, Brown learned to play trombone and traveled to Cincinnati and other cities with his brothers in their band, "Uncle Tom’s Cabin," netting $10 a week (about $300 today) for their performances.

His daughter, Della Brown Taylor Hardman, was an artist who graduated with a master's in fine arts in 1945 and became a professor at West Virginia State University.

[4] Several years after running his butcher shop, Brown took a real-estate investing course in Boston, Massachusetts, and used his earnings to purchase a house at 1219 Washington Street, next to Charleston High School.

The thriving area around his properties became known as "The Block" — a residential, social, economic, educational, and religious center of the African-American population of the city during the Jim Crow era and segregation, as well as the home for other ethnic groups.

In addition to his commercial properties, Brown bought land around Charleston, West Virginia, to build houses, which he rented affordably to black community members.