The Outlook Book Service was started in the 1950s to support the magazine and James Brown developed it into a well-respected and efficient mail-order service. In 1972 he added a far-reaching and profitable program of selling vacation Bible school materials. For the last 10 of his 43 years with the magazine he served as publisher.
In 1989 the Presbyterian Outlook Foundation honored Brown with the Ernest Trice Thompson Award for service to the denomination.
As the Outlook Foundation board said upon his retirement in 1990, “He forsook business opportunities offering material rewards far greater than could ever have been offered by an independent and unproven church paper whose advocacy of significant causes assured it only of an uncertain future.” Through Brown’s work, The Outlook survived while many independent church publications failed.
During his life Brown served in many capacities in service to the Presbyterian Church. He and his wife, Betty, have been members of Tuckahoe church since 1953 where he served at various times as elder, deacon, leader of junior high youth, teacher of adults, and superintendent of the Sunday school.
During the 1950’s, he volunteered as a Boy Scout leader for African-American teen-agers at the 17th-Street Mission in Richmond. He advanced the cause of equal rights regardless of race which he demonstrated not only in his volunteer work but also by his hiring of African-American high school students at The Outlook in the 1950s and 60s, perhaps being one of the first white-operated businesses to do so in Richmond. In recognition of this service in the area of race relations, he was named an honorary faculty member at Armstrong High School for three consecutive years.
He is survived by his wife, Betty O. Brown of Richmond; two daughters, Janet E. Brown and Leslie M. Meagher Brown, both of Richmond; and one son, James S. Brown Jr. of Midlothian, Va.; six grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.
