(FORTUNE Magazine) – Who said PBS is a bastion of liberals? Tony Brown, 58, host of public television's Tony Brown's Journal, has joined the number of blacks who think social programs alone can't cure poverty. Says Brown, who grew up poor and attended segregated schools in Charleston, West Virginia: ''I learned early in life that all I was going to have was what I was willing to work for.'' Brown's latest effort is aimed at helping private business fund minority entrepreneurs and job creation. His willingness included part-time warehouse labor to get himself through Detroit's Wayne State University, where he earned a master's in psychiatric social work, and then into TV as executive producer of The Black Journal, which took his name in 1975. His independent views have sometimes set him against black leaders. Brown, who recently signed up as a Republican and counts Senator Robert Dole among his new fans, preaches economic empowerment for the black community. To help that happen, he has founded the Buy Freedom Network, a 900 phone number system that works a bit like the yellow pages. Callers will be able to dial the number, which has yet to be assigned, to find black- or white-owned companies that sell the products they need. These outfits also set aside some of their profits to fund job training and other programs designed to help minorities. Profits from the calls will go to the Self Employment Enterprise Fund. This nonprofit group will guarantee loans for minority entrepreneurs who might not otherwise get them. Brown expects the Buy Freedom Network to foster some 50,000 new jobs within five years.