Jasper Brown was born in Columbia, SC in 1946, and grew up under the full oppression of Jim Crow. He attended all-segregated schools and did well academically, while also excelling at football and baseball. During the early 60s Jasper participated in the Civil Rights Movement protests in the Columbia area. These experiences made Brown determined to work for change. In 1965 he was accepted at Hampton University, graduating in 1969 with a degree in Business Administration. In 1974 Jasper graduated from the Catholic University School of Law in Washington, DC. He began his career with the National Labor Relations Board that year, transferring to the Region 11 office in Winston-Salem, NC in 1977. In his 40-year career as a Field Attorney for the NLRB, Brown dealt with many different cases in his assigned area, virtually all of which involved race—both in terms of the makeup of the employees and in the nature of the management's use of racial divisions to attempt to destroy union movements. Standout cases include Holly Farms Corp. vs NLRB in 1996, which Brown successfully litigated all the way to the US Supreme Court. This judgement resulted in a $6 million settlement for the workers. In 2004 he won a $7.75 million settlement with Enersys Inc. over its anti-union campaign. As with other cases this case involved a group of African-American workers whose union activities were being viciously fought by the company. Perhaps Jasper Brown's biggest case involved Smithfield Packing Co. vs. NLRB. This landmark case was a key factor in the biggest victory for a union in the 21st century, affecting 5,000 slaughterhouse workers, the vast majority of whom are people of color. Brown's 40 years of service lies at the intersection of labor rights and civil rights. It sometimes involved dangerous activities lining up witnesses and litigants in isolated areas of North and South Carolina. Long a mentor to young NLRB attorneys, Brown retired in 2014, and is still an activist in both the Big Brother's program, his church and Hampton University, where his fish fries are legendary.