More than two decades later, her mother remembers the conversation.
"My comment to her was, 'If someone came to the campus looking for a voice, would they ask an individual who's chair of a particular group or ask for the SGA president?' " Eladies Sampson said this week. "I told her, 'If you want to have a voice, that's where you need to go.' "
Brock's victory in the student government election gave her a voice that she has used ever since, both in her professional life as a health care administrator and longer - and more demonstratively - with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Over the weekend, the Baltimore-based organization elected Brock, a longtime member of its national board, its next chairwoman.
The 44-year-old Elkridge woman will replace Julian Bond, a notable figure in the civil rights movement who is stepping down at age 70. With the 2008 appointment of Benjamin Jealous, the organization's 37-year-old CEO and president, Brock's election represents a generational shift that NAACP leaders hope will attract new and younger members.
Brock and Jealous are the youngest to hold their positions in the 101-year history of the organization.
"What [we] have an opportunity to do is to reignite that energy and vibrancy in the organization as we begin that first year of our second century," Brock said this week before flying to Los Angeles to take part in the NAACP's annual Image Awards on Friday.
"We are the inheritors of the struggle and progress of hundreds of thousands of famous and faceless individuals who believe that American society can be better for all of us. Both [Jealous] and I are beneficiaries of that. It's now time that the baton is passed to a new generation of leaders to take this organization the next mile of the way."
Her job will be to sell younger Americans on an organization that critics say has lost its relevance - and much of its political influence - over the past two decades amid membership losses in the hundreds of thousands, financial debt in the millions and the larger question of whether it has outlived its usefulness.
Jealous believes that Brock, who was born in Florida but moved to Prince George's County as a child, is up to the challenge.
"We have great hope in Roslyn to emerge as a transformative, historical figure in our country's history," he said. "Throughout her career, she continually focuses on the crises of today and the victories of tomorrow. She is well-respected in her own right and will become a household name quickly."
Brock credits Bond and former Chairwoman Myrlie Evers-Williams with being "beacons our community, in our struggle. If it were not for them and the sacrifices they have made, there wouldn't be an NAACP. There would not be a Barack Obama. I would not have been afforded the opportunity to become chairman."
Still, Brock spoke of taking a new approach as chair.
"I believe that the organization cannot continue just to state what we're against. We really have to say what we're for, and offer some tangible solutions about how to solve problems," said Brock.
Toward that end, Brock is reaching outside the African-American community, educating those unaware that along with historic figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois, the organization was founded largely by what Brock called "progressive white Americans" and others "who wanted to do something about that quote-unquote darker race.
"It's not just for African-Americans to be talking about change," she said. "We invite many individuals - whites, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans - to come and join our movement and become members of the organization and inheritors of the American dream."
The NAACP has changed since its founding. In its heyday, Howard University political scientist Lorenzo Morris said, the organization had a "more progressive" civil rights policy and legislative orientation. "It did not retain the progressive part of its orientation," said Morris, who would like to see the organization more involved in urban affairs. "It seems to have taken a back seat on political issues, trying to always be within the range of fairly moderate American policies."
Brock says that her professional background - she is vice president for advocacy and government relations at Bon Secours Health System Inc., a chain of Catholic hospitals, nursing facilities and other programs based in Marriottsville - makes her particularly sensitive to those who are struggling to find affordable health care.
"We're challenged by the questions that are on many Americans' minds now when they have to grapple with the issue," Brock said. "We want to include everyone, not just people of color, who feel they have been locked out and fallen through the cracks in a prosperous society."
