Jim Brown doesn’t give lip service to solutions; he finds ones that work
America still doesn’t understand Jim Brown. Oh, we understand Brown the football player and athlete. He’s the greatest running back the game has ever seen and arguably the greatest athlete the world has ever known. We get that.
We don’t get the man. We fail to recognize the substance of his life.
I asked Jim Brown to visit Kansas City and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum today and this evening so that we could learn more about him, his life and his life’s work. Jim and I are friends. I want him to be friends with all of us. He’s a different kind of Buck O’Neil. Jim Brown loves people with ideas and courage and the resolve to be self-responsible and have a commitment to community.
Jim is Buck O’Neil and Ollie Gates rolled into a football player/movie star.
This afternoon, Jim is going to have lunch with Mr. Gates and city councilman Terry Riley. They, along with UMKC and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, helped me bring Jim and members of Jim’s Amer-I-Can staff to Kansas City.
kansascity.com
9/26/08
