A Quiet Hero

Dr. W. Melvin Brown is a Navy veteran who now practices medicine in his hometown, Charleston, South Carolina.  He is also an African-American, a fact that caused him to be a subject of controversy last month when some white friends urged him to apply for membership in the prestigious Charleston Rifle Club. Brown was literally “black-balled.”  In the election meeting  members place either a white or a black marble in a box assigned to the proposed candidate;  six black balls  is a “no.”  When it turned out that Brown’s box contained 11 black marbles, he was tapped on the shoulder and asked to leave the meeting just as the successful 13 applicants, all white, moved forward for the induction ceremony. To this point in the story, Brown is a victim, but not a hero. What I think makes him  a hero is his response to this racial insult.  Brown admits that his  immediate reaction was “huge…

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