Diamound Brown doesn’t like to talk about her five years in prison or the 18 months she spent grieving the loss of her son after he died in the Woodmore bus crash, or the dozens and dozens of people she has helped and continues to help since then, but once she does, the passion and caring inside of her comes out, and it eventually overwhelms her.
She fought back the tears as long as she could, but as she talked about selling her house in Chattanooga and buying a smaller one in Cleveland, Tennessee, and opening Chatty’s Restaurant in Avondale in order to help the people in the community there, the emotions overcame her and the tears fell.
“It’s very hard to succeed in this area, partly because I’m not from here, but I’m going to keep fighting so hard to keep up everything. I’ve already been through the hardest things in life, so it has to get better. I’ve been in prison. I lost a child. I’ve slept on floors. It can’t get any worse, so I know there are going to be more positive things for me.”
For Brown, those positive things usually mean doing something for somebody else. Whether it’s putting nearly 30 people to work or buying coats for two young boys she saw walking the street in front of Chatty’s earlier this week when the temperatures dropped into the 20s, she wants to help.
“I’ve got two boys, 14 and 15, on my payroll. Boys off the streets. I’d see them breaking into cars and just hanging out. Now they wash dishes, sweep the floors, whatever. That motivates me to help out more. These kids are looking to us and they will be taking care of us one day. I want them to have better than what I had growing up.”