In Memory of Bernard C. Brown II

Bernard C. Brown II was 11 years old and from Washington, D.C. (Born: Tampa, Florida). Bernard was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77.

Bernard was clever, a quick wit, the kind of boy who kept his teachers on their toes. Estella Cleveland, who taught his fifth-grade class at Leckie Elementary School in Southeast Washington, loved him.

"He used to give the fourth-grade teacher fits. But he turned it around last year. Everybody noticed it," Cleveland said.

That's why Cleveland gave Bernard's name to her best friend at Leckie, sixth-grade teacher Hilda Taylor, when Taylor asked whom she should take on a 4 day National Geographic trip to California.

"He was fun-loving," she said. "He was the joy of the class."

Sinita Brown (Bernard's mother), recalls September 11, 2001:

"Everybody was calling me at my job because they knew my husband worked at the Pentagon". A golf outing had Bernard Sr. out of the office that day. But Sinita Brown's relief quickly turned to grief when she learned it was her son's flight that hit the Pentagon.