Pittsburgh City Council celebrated a resident of the city’s Hill District neighborhood this week for her decades-long dedication to speaking her mind at public meetings.
Yvonne F. Brown turned 80 years old on Monday. Since 1999, she’s spoken during the public comment period of almost every City Council meeting, usually walking twice a week to the City County Building from her Hill District home. Facing Council’s nine members from a podium, Brown addresses a variety of issues: conditions in the senior high-rise where she lives, police conduct, homelessness, and racial justice, just to name a few.
“You need to hear the poor people,” Brown said to Council this week. “You’re making decisions for them. If you’re making decisions for people, you need to know what they’re going through.”
Over the years, Brown has made an impression on many council members, though they frequently sit stone-faced during her remarks. This week, Council recognized Brown for her years of civic participation with a proclamation, and a day in her honor: July 21, the day after her birthday.
The proclamation recounts Brown’s years of work for social-service organizations in California and Pittsburgh, noting her appearances at Pittsburgh Public Schools meetings and Allegheny County Council. It hails her “dedication and commitment to showing up that has continued to this day for over 20 years.”
In presenting the proclamation, Council President Dan Lavelle praised Brown for using her voice, even if it’s sometimes been raised against him.
“Democracy requires a two-way street,” Lavelle said. “It’s still the people’s job to hold us accountable and to stand with us and to come check us and to hold us accountable to what we said we were going to try to campaign on. And that’s what Yvonne has been doing for decades.”
Former councilmember Theresa Kail-Smith, who retired from representing the West End last year, remembers Brown fondly.
“I used to watch the city council meetings just to hear her yell at the city council members,” Kail-Smith said. “And then I became one of those members, and she and I built a friendship because I did appreciate that she came down there so frequently.”
Despite Brown’s criticisms, Kail-Smith said she admired her dedication.
“Sometimes she’d get mad at me, and sometimes she’d yell at me,” she said. “I didn’t always like what she said, and I didn’t always like the way she said it. But I loved that she was strong enough to continue saying it whether people liked it or not.”
Hill District resident Yvonne F. Brown stands with family members and Pittsburgh City Councilors after receiving a proclamation in her honor on July 21, 2026.
Outside of council chambers, Brown has a long history of working and volunteering in her community. The 2002 death of her son, Anthony Johnson, after a fight is a big reason she keeps coming back to Council. She has spent years seeking more information on what happened, and criticizing the police response to her son’s death.
After Tuesday’s meeting, Brown told WESA that she doesn’t want anyone else to have to go through what she experienced.
“My son is gone. I can’t bring him back,” she said. “But I am fighting so if it ever happens to somebody else, it can be brought out. People will know.”
After accepting the proclamation on Tuesday, Brown told Council – standing at the front of the chamber for once – that she speaks on behalf of those who can’t make it to meetings themselves.
“I come down here not for me,” she said. “I’m coming down here for people that cannot come down. There’s some that can’t come. Some that want to come.”
She told WESA that inequality, racism and unfair treatment motivate her to keep talking.
“The inequity is the main reason why I speak,” she said. “Why is it that you have more than what we do, and we’re still part of this community?”
As she accepted her award on Tuesday, Brown said elected officials should remember their duty to their constituents – and listen to what they have to say.
“This is our room. This is City Hall. They made this room for the people to come and tell you so you can learn,” she advised Council. “You don’t know everything, and I don’t either, but I’ve learned a lot.”
Over the years Brown has been joined by a number of other council regulars, who use public comment to address topics of their own. But having survived a stroke, Brown said she’s thought of stepping back from the mic, now that her daughter Unique Brown regularly speaks during public comment herself.
But in the meantime, Brown hopes more people will speak their minds as well. After accepting her award, she did what she has done almost every Tuesday for more than a quarter-century – speak during public comment until the buzzer signals her three minutes are up.
“Coming down here, even though all these years I’ve been fussing,” she said Tuesday, as the timer began to ring. “I have had some kind of peace speaking about it.”