David M. Brown
David McDowell Brown (April 16, 1956 – February 1, 2003) was a United States Navy captain and a NASA astronaut. He died on his first spaceflight, when the Space Shuttle "Columbia" (STS-107) disintegrated during orbital reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. Brown became an astronaut in 1996, but had not served on a space mission prior to the "Columbia" disaster. Brown was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
Brown, the 1986 recipient of the Navy Operational Flight Surgeon of the Year award, received numerous decorations including:
The symbol indicates a posthumous award.
Columbia, Tennessee
On February 25, 1946, a civil disturbance dubbed "the Columbia Race Riot" broke out in the county seat. It was covered by the national press as the first "major racial confrontation" following World War II. The black community well remembered Cheek's lynching in 1933 and were determined to defend themselves when threatened.