 Shortly after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps, an action that offended Brown so much that he helped organize protests in Los Angeles in 1942.Brown's college education was interrupted by the draft, but as a Quaker, he had registered as a conscientious objector, and in 1942, he entered the Civilian Public Service at Camp 21 in Wyeth, Oregon.During his service at Camp 21, Brown realized that he could not change the broader society while he was isolated in Civilian Public Service and rescinded his conscientious objector status in 1944, entering the United States Army, serving in World War II as an instructor and rising to the rank of lieutenant by the time of his discharge in 1946.