Despite Chuck Brown’s major contribution to the nation’s capital with the unique go-go swing, congressional Republicans blocked a bill to name a Northeast post office after the Godfather of Go-Go, withdrawing it moments before the House Oversight Committee convened.
“Committee members raised concerns about advancing a postal naming bill for an individual convicted of murder,” a spokesman for Oversight Committee Republicans said in a statement.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the District’s representative in Congress, said she was “deeply disappointed” by the decision.
“D.C. loves Chuck Brown, and he loved D.C. He had a significant impact on D.C.’s history and culture as well as music. I regret that Republicans on this committee refuse to honor this legend,” Norton said. “His impact on our history, our culture, and American music is undeniable, and it is unfortunate that some on the Committee would object to honoring him.”
Supporters said if Congress bothered to learn who he was beyond a decades-old conviction, they would have encountered one of the most consequential artists this city ever produced.
In a 2010 National Endowment for the Arts podcast interview, Brown explained his beginnings.
“I’ve been around music all my life and everybody in my family could play some kind of instrument,” Brown noted.
He recalled early days on Southern roads and the harmonica and accordion music of his mother. By 13, he had left the piano behind, but music never left him.
Further, Lorton— the institution where Brown was incarcerated, which Republicans used to justify rejecting the bill— was where Brown transformed.
“Out of all the other institutions that I’ve been through, they only taught me one thing: how not to go back to those same institutions again,” Brown stated in that same 2010 NEA interview. “But when I went to Lorton, that’s when I found myself.”
“I learned how to play that guitar, I got serious about it within about six months,” Brown explained, describing fellow incarcerated musicians who mentored him at the prison complex. “I never forgot what they showed me because I never learned how to read music.”
He performed there, too.
“If I was on the show at 5 p.m., wouldn’t be nobody in the mess hall,” said Brown, recalling Lorton’s Saturday “Showtime” performances, broadcast by legendary D.C. personality Petey Greene over the prison loudspeakers. It’s nearly impossible to deny that Brown’s sound developed into the pulse of the city.
In a 2012 interview with Smithsonian Magazine, Dwan Reece of the National Museum of African American History and Culture described Brown’s creation of an entirely new musical form.
“He’s got such a legacy in music in creating a genre of its own,” Reece said. “The chanting, the call-and-response. It was, more than anything, one long party.”
Brown, who the District holds an annual celebration for remembering his life and legacy, explained the name.
“The music just goes and goes,” said Brown in remarks reported by Smithsonian Magazine, summarizing the essence of go-go’s forward momentum.
Local Officials Denounce Decision, Uplift Brown’s Memory
When Republicans blocked his post office naming, the backlash from D.C. officials was not abstract — it was personal.
“It’s clear to me that the legacy and culture of D.C. is under attack by congressional Republicans, and we should all be really concerned about it,” Council member Zachary Parker proclaimed. “Chuck Brown is a legend, and Ward 5 continues to celebrate his legacy, and it’s just sad that we’re even having to defend off legislation or have these debates about D.C. culture and our people.”
D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson added that he believes it’s completely appropriate to honor Brown.
“I find it ironic that in this administration there are folks who are insisting that a criminal record from long, long, long ago for which Chuck Brown did his time is somehow unacceptable,” Mendelson offered.
Still, many argue that while Congress may have refused to honor him, the District has and Brown’s beat he built still goes on.
“Chuck Brown was a Washingtonian for most of his life,” Norton declared. “He created go-go, the official music of D.C., and shaped the District’s cultural identity.”
