Johnny Brown, the father of US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and a respected former chief attorney for Miami-Dade County Public Schools, has died at the age of 80.
Brown reportedly passed away from natural causes on Wednesday. During his legal career, he spent more than two decades with the Miami-Dade school district and served as its top attorney between 1999 and 2005.
He is survived by his wife, Ellery Brown; his children, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and attorney Ketajh Brown; two grandchildren, Talia and Leila; his sister, Carrie Mae Stone; and his son-in-law, Patrick Jackson.
Ellery Brown also devoted many years to education, serving as head of the New World School of the Arts in Miami-Dade from 1993 to 2007.
Family members described Johnny Brown as a calm and humble man whose commitment to both his profession and family left a lasting impact.
Calvin Ross, Brown’s brother-in-law and former Miami police chief, said the late attorney was much more than family by marriage.
“He wasn’t a brother-in-law, he was really a brother. Other folk may have seen him from the business side or from a different social setting, but I was able to see him from a very personal standpoint. Though he was not a blood brother, if I had to choose my brother, he would have been one that I would have chosen,” Ross said.
Brown played a major role in inspiring his daughter’s legal career, which culminated in her historic appointment to the US Supreme Court in 2022 as the court’s first Black female justice.
In her memoir, Lovely One, Justice Jackson recalled how her father encouraged her interest in the law while studying at the University of Miami School of Law.
“I wanted to be just like the ebony-skinned, gentle-voiced man who would sometimes look up from his textbooks to talk to me about his cases, to ask me what I thought, as if I weren’t four years old. The conundrums he described fascinated me; they were stories of people in trouble, conflict, or sorrow, seeking the even-handed recourse of the law,” she wrote.
Born in Fitzgerald, Georgia, Brown later moved with his family to Liberty City in Miami during the 1950s. He attended Miami Northwestern High School, where he met his future wife, Ellery.
He later studied at Kentucky State University before transferring to North Carolina Central University, becoming the first member of his family to attend college.
Ross remembered Brown as a supportive father who encouraged his children to pursue their ambitions without imposing his own expectations.
“He wasn’t there to drive them, but to support them, and that, to me, was the real hallmark of a supporting parent — one that allows their children to pursue their dreams and is there to support them, not making them do something,” he said.
Justice Jackson also wrote that her parents instilled in their children the values of hard work, confidence in individual potential and pride in Black American history.
Ross added that Brown remained composed even under pressure.
“He certainly enjoyed a good argument, but never to the point of becoming angry. I just can’t ever recall him becoming angry… That was not Johnny. That was not him at all,” he said.
Away from work, Brown enjoyed fishing trips with family and competitive card games.
“He was a ruthless card player, to say the least. His focus and his intent was on winning — and he did a lot of that,” Ross recalled.
Before joining Miami-Dade County Public Schools in 1983, Brown worked as a corporate lawyer for Burger King and later handled commercial real estate matters for the former supermarket chain Pantry Pride.
Former Miami-Dade School Board member Marta Perez described him as “very nice and very personable,” while Luis Garcia, the district’s current deputy general counsel who worked under Brown, praised him as “a great supervisor” and a leader who always put family first.
Brown’s family said no formal funeral service has been scheduled, although a private family gathering will be held in Miami at a later date.
