Oscar Brown Sr. (December 22, 1895 – October 1, 1990) was a prominent Chicago businessman, lawyer and community activist.
Gradually, he turned his attention away from law and started the Oscar C. Brown Real Estate Corp. and spent a good part of his life on issues relating to real estate, either as a developer, an activist or as an administrator.
[3] In the mid-1930s, disillusioned with the progress of racial integration, Brown seriously considered the concept of separatism.
A major focus of his efforts there were to protest housing segregation and to improve police enforcement in predominantly African-American neighborhoods.
He became the first African American appointed to the real estate planning committee of the Illinois Department of Registration and Education in 1964.