BLACKSBURG, Va. – Bill Brown, a beloved former chief of police in Blacksburg who made history as the first Black police officer in the New River Valley, will be laid to rest on Saturday.
On Friday afternoon, friends, family, and former colleagues attended his visitation to pay their respects.
“What a legacy: a legacy of leadership, a legacy of knowing how to communicate with people,” said Nathaniel L. Bishop, a retired senior vice president at Carilion Clinic and a former Christiansburg police officer.
Have the day's biggest stories arrive in your inbox every day at 8 p.m.
Bishop said Brown was a mentor to him. Bishop joined the Christiansburg Police Department in the mid-1970s, just a few years after Brown made history by joining the Blacksburg Police Department in 1970.
“And it was good for me to be able to have some conversations with him and help to understand how to navigate what it’s like being first,” Bishop told 10 News. “He had done it so well and I was just so proud of the way he carried himself.”
Brown also helped open doors for people like Lisa Lucas Gardner, a former police officer hired by Brown in the 1980s. She said he shared lessons that still resonate today.
“Be like Bill and be a good cop,” she said. “He’s a cop’s cop, always had integrity and honor but really the job we’re supposed to do, he did.”
Family members and longtime friends of Brown remembered a more personal side.
“He was a fantastic brother, we all loved him,” said Earl Brown, a younger brother of Bill Brown. “Great leader, really the family sometimes leaned on him.”
“To me, he was just plain Bill,” said Alexis Johnson, a classmate of Brown at the Christiansburg Institute. “To other people, he was Captain Bill, Chief Bill or whatever and other things. But to us, in the community, he was just Bill. A neighbor.”
Brown died on Jan. 24, leaving an enduring legacy in Blacksburg and beyond. His funeral will be held on Saturday at 11 a.m. at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Blacksburg.
