Book Synopsis
Harold Brown (1914-1983) was one of the great spiritual teachers of Alcoholics Anonymous in the Illinois-Indiana-Michigan area in the second half of the twentieth century. Beginning life as a professional gambler and nightclub emcee in the old river boat city of St. Louis, his drinking drove him first to Chicago and then to the factory town of South Bend, eighty miles east of Chicago. There in 1950 Brownie found sobriety and a higher power - a God of his understanding - who taught him gratitude and love. Still to this day, on Saturday evenings at 8:00 p.m., speakers come from all over the area, from as far away as Chicago and its northern suburbs, from Lansing in central Michigan, and Bloomington in southern Indiana (traveling sometimes 300 to 400 miles round trip) to do honor to Brownie and preserve the legacy of his teaching, at the meeting place which he founded in the basement of St. Paul-Bethel Baptist Church, at 616 Pierce St. in South Bend, Indiana.