By Laurie Willis
Livingstone College News Service
SALISBURY — A magazine publisher who attended the 2012 Grammy Awards and was a close friend of the late entertainment icon Whitney Houston will speak today at Livingstone College.
Dr. Jamie Foster Brown, publisher and sole owner of Sister 2 Sister magazine, is expected to share her story on Wednesday while also discussing her relationship with Houston, who appeared on her magazine’s cover several times throughout the years. Foster Brown will speak at Livingstone’s weekly assembly, which begins at 11 a.m. in Varick Auditorium on campus.
Sister 2 Sister, a monthly publication that was launched in 1988, has become a staple for entertainment industry insiders. Since Foster Brown launched the magazine in 1988, she has become a consummate confidant to the stars and is often the first to get interviews with major celebrities.
Foster Brown began her entertainment career nearly a decade before launching Sister 2 Sister when she founded the Washington Theater Group in 1979. The service group focused on theater group sales. Her career got a boost when she worked for Black Entertainment Television (BET) as an advertising secretary to its founder, Robert “Bob” Johnson, before being promoted to producer for the network’s flagship shows, “Video Soul” and “Video LP.”
During Foster Brown’s illustrious career, she has been quoted numerous times by major news organizations, including People Magazine, the Associated Press, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, Celebrity Justice and others. Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government Institute of Politics once had Brown deliver a keynote address on the effect of popular music on American culture, and her moral outrage over the excessive violence in gangster rap lyrics and its increasing influence on young people is credited as being a catalyst for dialogue between black leaders and music industry moguls.
Foster Brown was entered into the Congressional Record as “one of the most accomplished and respected women in the field of entertainment journalism,” and a former mayor of Washington, D.C., officially named Aug. 18, 1998, “Jamie Foster Brown Day” in the nation’s capital.
Brown is a graduate of the University of Stockholm in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2008 she received a doctor of humane letters from Bennett College for Women. Originally from Chicago, Brown lives in Maryland with her husband, Dr. Lorenzo Brown, an economist and managing editor of Sister 2 Sister. Their sons, Randy and Russell, work for Sister 2 Sister as associate publisher and business operations manager, respectively.