[1] Following her graduation from Tufts, she was a bartender, managed stores for CVS and McDonalds, drove trucks for Ryder, and worked at Skidmore College in the Admissions Office and as director of the Higher Education Opportunity Program.
Brown's teaching and scholarship focused on the history of African American communities in post-Civil War America, particularly the experiences of women and workers.
Her first book, Upbuilding Black Durham (UNC Press, 2008), was awarded the Frederick Jackson Turner prize, issued by the Organization of American Historians.
In 2010, she published, with Anne M. Valk, Living with Jim Crow: African American Women and Memories of the Segregated South (Palgrave, 2010), based on interviews from the 'Behind the Veil Project.'
She also published numerous articles and, at the time of her death, was working on a monograph on African-American women and migration, and a compilation of writing and speeches by Shirley Chisholm.