By the 1950s, Brown was the ranking minority member of the important Rules Committee in Congress. In the 1960s, he worked with its chairman, Democrat Howard W. Smith of Virginia, to block expansive federal legislation sought by presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Smith was a senior member of the Southern Block, established by white Democrats at the turn of the 20th century, when the former Confederate states disfranchised blacks. However, near the end of his life, Brown convinced the segregationist Smith to allow landmark civil rights legislation to reach the house floor for a vote.