“‘Is it your custom, captain,’ said I, ‘to let niggers sit at table with white folks on your boat?’
“This question, together with the fact that the other passenger had sent for the officer, and that I had ‘stolen his thunder,’ appeared to please the company very much, who gave themselves up to laughter; while the Southern-looking man left the cabin with the exclamation, ‘Damn fools!’”
In the autumn of 1854, Dr. Brown published his “Sketches of Places and People Abroad,” that met with a rapid sale, and which the New York Tribune said, was “well-written and intensely interesting.”
His drama, entitled “The Dough Face,” written shortly after, and read by him before lyceums, gave general satisfaction wherever it was heard.
Indeed, in this particular line the doctor seems to excel, and the press was unanimous in its praise of his efforts. The Boston Journal characterized the drama and its reading as “interesting in its composition, and admirably rendered.”
“The Escape; or, Leap for Freedom,” followed the “Dough Face,” and this drama gave an amusing picture of slave life, and was equally as favorably received by the public.
In 1863, Dr. Brown brought out “The Black Man,” a work which ran through ten editions in three years, and which was spoken of by the press in terms of the highest commendation, and of which Frederick Douglass wrote in his own paper,—
“Though Mr. Brown’s book may stand alone upon its own merits, and stand strong, yet while reading its interesting pages,—abounding in fact and argument, replete with eloquence, logic, and learning, clothed with simple yet eloquent language,—it is hard to repress the inquiry, Whence has this man this knowledge? He seems to have read and remembered nearly everything which has been written and said respecting the ability of the negro, and has condensed and arranged the whole into an admirable argument, calculated both to interest and convince.”
William Lloyd Garrison said, in The Liberator, “This work has done good service, and proves its author to be a man of superior mind and cultivated ability.”
Hon. Gerritt Smith, in a letter to Dr. Brown, remarked,—“I thank you for writing such a book. It will greatly benefit the colored race. Send me five copies of it.”