Brown served as the educational director of the Riverside-Meharry Clinical Rotation Program and the chief of surgery at Riverside. She then became the attending surgeon at George W. Hubbard Hospital and professor of surgery at the Meharry Medical College. In addition to her other firsts, in southern medicine, she also became the first single woman in Tennessee to adopt a child. Brown named her new daughter Lola Brown in honor of her foster mother.

In 1966, she became the first African-American woman to be elected to the Tennessee State Legislature for a two-year term. She tried in 1968 to run for a seat in the Tennessee Senate, but lost. One of the main reasons she lost the election was her support to liberalize the abortion laws in Tennessee. She was a fellow of the American College of Surgery. She was a past member of the board of trustees at Bennett College.

She was also a member of the United Methodist Church as well as Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.