← B.E. 40th ANNIVERSARY COVER GALLERY

nd-1996-JUNE

By Alfred Edmond, Jr. | Published August 8, 2010 | Full size is 500 × 320 pixels

As our editors were producing the June 1996 issue, Ronald H. Brown, Commerce Secretary under the Clinton Administration, and his fellow travelers met an untimely end in a plane crash on a Croatian mountainside. As stated in that issue’s Publisher’s Page: “It is only fitting that we pay tribute to Brown in the same issue that features the BE 100S. Brown was a vocal and active champion of minority-owned enterprise; even as his opponents and peers scoffed, Brown held fast to the tenet that American business cannot thrive if its minority-businesses cannot thrive.” In his role, Brown helped black businesses gain unprecedented access to emerging global markets.

As our editors were producing the June 1996 issue, Ronald H. Brown, Commerce Secretary under…