The “Godfather of Soul,” “Soul Brother Number One” and “The Hardest Working Man in Show Business” are a few of the nicknames James Brown was known as, but to Deanna Brown Thomas, he’ll always be known as “Daddy.”
And Thomas is committed to preserving the good things that her father did during his life and his career. The legendary singer died in Atlanta on Christmas Day in 2006.
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“I feel like he was prepping me all my life,” said Thomas, who was honored on July 31 with Women of Wealth Magazine’s Innovative Leadership Award for Legacy Humanitarianism at an evening at the Augusta Marriott at the Convention Center.
The things he taught her led her to be a successful businesswoman in her own right, but he also taught her how to give back to others, she said. Thomas owns several businesses including T&T Transportation, Val-U Furniture and DeShawn’s Seafood.
Thomas toured with her father, serving as a hairdresser and soaking in his business acumen as she rolled his hair and listened to him discuss business deals, she said. To him, business was 75%-25% with the 75% being the contracts and commitment, the paying people and being on time, while the 25% was the performance.
Without the 75%, there would be no 25%, she said.
Thomas remembers a man who never forgot where he came from, a man born into poverty in Barnwell, S.C. in 1933, who rose to fame in music and left an indelible mark there. His most recent honor was as part of the inaugural Black Music and Entertainment Walk of Fame in Atlanta June 17 where an “emblem has been cemented on the sidewalk” outside the Mercedes Benz Stadium on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, she said.
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Thomas recalled one trip to Los Angeles. She watched as her father stopped the car and walked to an area where there were a bunch of homeless people. He began passing out $50 bills. Then he told them to get cleaned up, get some food and do something with their lives.
“I learned he wasn’t giving out money but hope,” she said.
Then he turned to her.
“You grew up with a silver spoon in your mouth. You don’t know what it feels like to be poor,” were his words to her, she said, admitting he was right. She didn’t know what it was like to wonder where a meal would come from.
Back in Augusta and in New York, Brown made sure people didn’t go without at Christmas and Thanksgiving where toy and turkey giveaways prior to the pandemic were an annual thing.
And he didn’t just buy a bunch of turkeys and have someone else pass them out. No, Thomas said, he was there playing Santa and giving out the birds.
He wanted to connect with people in the Augusta neighborhoods he once called home. He wanted to be the inspiration to them–the one who made it out, she said.
Thomas said after her father’s death, one of the first questions people asked was if the giveaways would continue. And through the James Brown Family Foundation, of which Thomas is president, those holiday traditions have been kept alive.
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Another way she’s promoted his legacy is through the founding of the James Brown Academy of Musik Pupils, aka J.A.M.P., “a year-round musical village dedicated to teaching students to play instruments, write and create their own music,” according to the James Brown Family Foundation website.
J.A.M.P. will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a special program Saturday.
Also, the James Brown Family Historical Tour has become a popular event. Started in 2016, the tours hit sites in Augusta important to the singer’s life. They are held from 11 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. each Saturday.
MORE: James Brown To Be Honored in Atlanta June 17
“Every weekend, we’ve been booked,” she said.
For more on the tour, visit jbtour.jamesbrownfamilyfdn.org.
And Thomas is just getting started.
Other plans are in the works such as a documentary, and one day, there will be a museum, she said, because that’s what her father wanted.
Charmain Z. Brackett is the Features Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach her at charmain@theaugustapress.com.
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