Tommie Florence Brown (1934-) was a social worker, educator, civic leader, and member of the Tennessee House of Representatives. She was born in Rome, Georgia but has spent almost her entire life in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Brown was a social worker at the Tennessee Department of Public Welfare from 1957 to 1971 before joining the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) faculty. Brown worked in the Sociology Department and Division of Human Services until 1977. Brown created and became coordinator of UTC’s Social Work program in 1977 before establishing the Department of Social Work in 1980. Brown was Head of the Department of Social Work from 1980 to 1983. She continued working at the university until 1998.

Brown received her Doctorate of Social Welfare Degree from Columbia University after completing her dissertation in 1984. Dr. Brown’s dissertation, The Struggle to Control Black Leadership: A Study in Community Power, sampled and interviewed respondents involved in Black community leadership in Chattanooga, Tennessee in the 1970s.

Brown was an active community member and civic leader from the late 1950s to the 2010s. Among other activities, she was an active member of the Chattanooga branch of the NAACP throughout her life, a board member for the Chattanooga Model Cities Program in 1970, the founder of the Tennessee Black Leadership Roundtable in 1984, and the lead plaintiff in the Brown v. Board of Commissioners of the City of Chattanooga suit against discriminatory voting practices.

Dr. Brown began her twenty-year legislative career in 1992, beginning in the 98th Tennessee General Assembly and concluding after the 107th. Over the course of her legislative career, she was most consistently involved in the Children and Family; Education; and Finance, Ways and Means House standing committees. In addition to these standing committees, Representative Brown served on special committees that spanned across multiple terms of the General Assembly. Notable special committees on which she served include the Inner City Economic Development Committee, the Ritalin Study Committee, the Lottery Scholarship Committee, and the Diabetes Prevention Study Committee.