Opa-locka housing complex renamed after longtime community advocate Mary Alice Brown
The Opa-locka Community Development Corporation renamed Aswan Village Apartments after Mary Alice Brown, a longtime resident and community advocate in North Dade.
Mary Alice Brown, a longtime community advocate, received an unusual recognition — an apartment complex named after her.
Friends and family gathered on Thursday in North Miami-Dade as the Opalocka Community Development Corporation honored Brown, 84, by renaming Aswan Village Apartments after her. The move follows the landmark legal decision that kept the 216-unit apartment complex under the nonprofit developer.
“I count it an honor and a blessing to be here today,” Brown said. “But more than that, I count it as a guiding post for my younger generation to see what they can accomplish if they stick together and work together.”
At the ceremony, mimosas and lattes were available on-demand. County and Opa-locka representatives came with proclamations that declared the day “Mary Alice
Brown Day.” Brown, dressed in her beloved sorority’s pink and green, sat on a white throne with silver accents as speaker after speaker sang her praises. The entire production was fit for a woman whom Willie Logan, OLCDC founder and chief executive officer, called the “matriarch of the greater Opa-locka community.”
“We think it’s really, really important that the people, histories, legacies are not lost because other folks come in, now own, take over and write their own stories, oftentimes with us not being in it,” said Logan.
Having resided in North Dade for more than half a century, Brown’s work has ingrained her into the fabric of the community. She was a founding member of the OLCDC’s board of directors on which she
served as board chair and secretary. A former PTA president, Brown organized and participated in an action where she and other parents rode on school buses with Black children integrating Norland High. She also worked on U.S. Rep. Bill Lehman’s congressional campaign. All in addition to her nearly 40-year career as a nurse.
“I wanted things to be better for my children,” Brown said to the audience of about 100 people. “And if I wanted it to be better for my children then I wanted it to be better for all children.”
Although much of Brown’s volunteerism occurred in North Dade, her impact was felt throughout the county.
Jannie Russell, the founder of Teen Up-Ward Bound, first met Brown more than 40 years ago in Coconut Grove. At the time, a 15-year-old Russell had just found out she was pregnant and with all the negative stereotypes surrounding teen pregnancy, Brown, who had her first child at age 16, soon became a symbol of hope.
“She pushed us to let us know that there’s nothing you can’t accomplish,” said Russell, adding that Brown was “the catalyst in helping us get started.”
The affordable housing complex, now the Mary Alice Brown Apartments, had undergone OLCDC’s two-year legal battle to keep the property locally owned. In 2019, OLCDC sued HallKeen Management, a New York-based developer, after it tried to sell the property to another company. Due to Aswan Village’s status as an affordable housing complex, the OLCDC had the right of first refusal to purchase it. The Third District Court of Appeals in Florida eventually sided with OLCDC in September 2021, which inspired Logan to make sure
Brown received recognition.
“All too often [Black people] are erased from history,” Logan said. “If we would’ve allowed [HallKeen Management] to give us $5 million to go home and be happy, no one in 10, 20, 30 years would know that the Opalocka CDC, Mary Alice Brown or anyone that’s here had anything to do with this. Now, you can look up, say she did this, we did this, my community did this.”