brown began his teaching career with positions at several universities, including lincoln university and fisk university, before returning to howard in 1929. he was a professor there for 40 years. brown's poetry used the south for its setting and showed slave experiences of the african american people. brown often imitated southern african-american speech, using "variant spellings and apostrophes to mark dropped consonants". he taught and wrote about african-american literature and folklore. he was a pioneer in the appreciation of this genre. he had an "active, imaginative mind" when writing and "a natural gift for dialogue, description and narration".