Mr. Brown was elected as the union’s youngest president in 1968, a position he held until 1985, when he was selected as the ILA’s international vice president.

Edward L. Brown Sr., the top Hampton Roads official of the International Longshoremen’s Association who was among the most respected members of the local port community, died Friday morning at his home in Virginia Beach. He was 83.

His family said the cause was complications from colon cancer.

A tireless advocate for waterfront workers and the Port of Hampton Roads, Mr. Brown served in the dockworkers union for 53 years, 24 of them as an international vice president representing waterfront workers from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico.

In Hampton Roads, Mr. Brown represented about 2,000 longshoremen who help load and unload cargo ships at the port, as well as 1,800 retirees.

“What the maritime community lost today was an individual who worked his entire adult life in developing the port, a reasonable and a fair individual and a man who had a vision,” said Roger Giesinger, president of the Hampton Roads Shipping Association, who worked closely with Mr. Brown on labor negotiations since the 1970s.

Giesinger said Mr. Brown was an astute negotiator, who often made decisions that were unpopular among union members.

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