E-mail a friendWillie Brown
original airdate February 20, 2008
Willie Brown went from a segregated East Texas neighborhood to a public service career spanning some 40 years. He served over 30 years in the California State Assembly, 14 as speaker—a state record. He then spent eight years as mayor of San Francisco—the first and only African American to hold that post. Brown initially wanted to be a math teacher and worked as a doorman, janitor and shoe salesman to put himself through college. He tells the story of his journey in the new autobiography, Basic Brown.
Former San Francisco Mayor tells the story of the 1978 Moscone-Milk assassinations and how he was also on the killer's hit list. (2:22)
Former San Francisco Mayor discusses his autobiography and the '78 Moscone-Milk assassinations. Full interview. (12:33)
Willie Brown
Tavis: I am honored to welcome Mayor Willie Brown to this program. The former two-term mayor of San Francisco and speaker of the California assembly is out with a memoir on his life in and out of politics. The book is called "Basic Brown: My Life and Our Times." Mayor Brown, an honor to have you on the program.
Mayor Willie Brown: All right, thank you.
Tavis: You been all right?
Brown: I'm in good shape and I came for one reason.
Tavis: Yes, sir.
Brown: Tell me, how do you make a bestseller? Everything you touch --
Tavis: No. (Laughs.)
Brown: -- hits the bestseller list like that. (Laughs.)
Tavis: No, I wish. I've been fortunate a few times, but I'm sure this is going to be just fine. Put that picture back up, Jonathan. Here's how you do it. You put on a fine suit (laughter) and a nice brim like that --
Brown: And you're on your way.
Tavis: And you're on your way.
Brown: All right.
Tavis: Let's start there. You have a whole chapter in the book, because for those who have followed your career they know that the way you look, your pulchritude is terribly important to you. How did that happen for you?
Brown: Well, it happened, frankly, it's part of the culture of that little town called Mineola, Texas. We had shoes and clothes we could only wear on Sunday, and that was when you'd go to church. You dressed up to go everyplace you were supposed to go, and the dress was appropriate to the occasion. And so it's just like learning to read, learning to count; it was all part of what I was about.
Tavis: But for you, though, the image, the way you look, the way you dress, has been an important part of your overall statement that really does impact the way you have governed, politically.
Brown: Well, really, I fell into it, actually, because I quickly recognized that all of my peers on the political side were pretty shabby in terms (laughter) of their appearance. And so I really set out to make the contrast dramatic, because with instant focus, the camera would go to me in a situation of multiples.
Well, it didn't take long for the others to begin to recognize it was not the words that they were uttering; people were focused on the misbuttoned shirt. People were focused on the tie that wasn't right. And so people started, in the world of politics, to change, and I am proud of the fact that so many politicians are now really doing their best to be presentable.
Tavis: Tell me where that kind -- see, that's a brilliant point and that's why I love that you spend a chapter in the book talking about the way you appear; your appearance. Tell me where that kind of strategic thinking happens for you. when do you start to develop this strategic, political thinking?
Brown: Well, I can't tell you when it started. All I know is it seems to have been a part of me forever. I go back and think when I was out there trying to play baseball, just as a little kid, I was always concerned about whether or not my socks were slipping down. (Laughter.) I didn't want them thinking -- my skinny little legs, I'd do something to hold those socks up.
So I've been kind of concentrating on appearance forever, whether in the world of politics or outside of the world of politics. I think it's really a key component of what you are and what you are about, and how forward you can move the agenda and incidentally how quickly you can move the agenda.
Tavis: I introduced you earlier, Mayor, before you came out, at the top of the show by saying, and I'm paraphrasing here, that you are one of the most influential African-American politicians of your generation. And once I said that, I almost wanted that back because you are one of the most influential politicians of your generation, period, never mind being an African-American. Does that bother you, when people put you in a box of being an influential African-American politician?
Brown: Not at all. Not at all, because believe me, I love the idea that at least I start out with something that's special and something that's important, and by the way, people should expect that I will understand the Black side of the issue better than any of my contemporaries if they are not Black. That's a natural. The same goes for Chinese, the same goes for a woman, the same goes for a gay or lesbian.
Now you don't have to be a specialist at it, but you really are expected, both by the ethnic group you come from as well as greater society, to have some understanding and some affinity for the process and the problems that are unique to that particular cultural component and that particular ethnic group. At the same time, I love demonstrating that I'm far beyond being just a Black politician.
Tavis: Let me jump away from the book and then I'll come back to the text in just a moment. Since you have said what you just offered us now, what do you make, then, how do you contextualize the Obama campaign in terms of this race question and the way that he has to or has been navigating this tightrope, if you will.
Brown: It is unbelievable. I frankly would have never envisioned that you could actually have a Black person -- a person you see on TV Black, a person you see on the podium at the convention Black, and people look at him on a qualified basis before they see the Blackness.
Barack Obama has managed somehow in the most phenomenal way to get people to focus on his qualifications coming from what he's saying rather than his color. His color is secondary. He is a qualified candidate who happens to be Black running for the presidency, and believe me that is an incredible achievement singularly for him and grossly for us.
Tavis: You did the same thing. The country knows Obama but you did the same thing in the California legislature. The book is chock-full of wonderful stories I can't do justice to, but for those of us who live and work in this state the story of your ascendancy to become the speaker of the California assembly and the way you remained in that position -- my favorite story, the vote where they were trying to take you out, the vote where you literally had to put in a pregnant member of -- you remember this story well.
Brown: Oh, yes, yes.
Tavis: Tell the story. I love it. I'll let you tell it, it's a great story.
Brown: Well, the legislature operates, at least our house of 80 members, on the basis of 41. Every day you must walk in there with 41. You don't have a contract, you don't have tenure; you have no status if you don't have 41. And so I obviously was very conscious of that. Forty-one could sometimes go below the line if for some reason somebody was busy having a baby or having a heart attack or what have you, and you have to be prepared for all of that.
Because believe me, your enemies do not give any quarters if they see an opportunity to devour you. And in this particular case one of our members was scheduled to have a child on Monday or Tuesday and of course she had been out of the legislature for a while, absent on home leave because her pregnancy was somewhat challenged.
I talked to her and I talked to her husband, we got a hold of a nice little jet, and produced her for the purpose of casting a vote. She cast the vote, went on back to the hospital, and six hours later had the baby. (Laughter.)
Tavis: The great point about that story is I don't know if the rules are still the same but at the time here in California on any day, at any time, to his point, you could call for a vote on the speaker.
Brown: Absolutely.
Tavis: So at any point in time, Willie Brown could have been yanked out of the most powerful slot in the state, and --
Brown: And believe me, people tried. In the book there's a story about the Gang of Five.
Tavis: Absolutely.
Brown: That group of my real dear friends, at that time, who came in to tell me it's over. You're too old, you've been around too long. We want to ascend to the throne. And we have put the votes together to ascend to the throne. I had them stay private with me for an hour because I had already sent the word to my man who had been waiting in the hallway forever. He hated these cats, and he really wanted to dismember them.
And by the time that hour was over I knew that he would have used that hour properly. He had put every stick of their furniture in the hallway. He had moved their parking spots. He had stripped them of their staff, he had stripped them of all their titles. And believe me, when they walked out there and the news people are asking why, I, of course -- old age and treachery. (Laughter.)
Tavis: I love it. There's another story in the book that's not quite as funny, but again, it speaks to your role and your timing where history is concerned. Mayor Moscone in San Francisco, assassinated. I'll let you tell the story, but he was assassinated by a former member of the council who had it out for him, literally seconds, moments, after you walked out of his office.
Brown: Fellow named Dan White killed George Moscone and Harvey Milk on that dark day in 1978. I had been upstairs, trying a case. The courthouse is in the same building in city hall. And when I was always there I'd go downstairs and have coffee with Moscone because he was my buddy. He was my friend. We shopped together, and this was approaching the Christmas holidays, and we were planning to go to the Wolves Den, one of those joints where you go and sip and let people model for you to select things. (Laughter.)
And so we were planning our program and he said to me "Listen, I've got to go swear a new guy in, a guy's resigned, but I'm going to see the guy that resigned because he's been begging me to take the resignation back, but I can't. And I'm going to have to tell him, finally, I can't."
And sure enough, as I walked out, Dan White walked in, and in about 10 minutes or less, when I'm back upstairs, the chief of staff of the mayor's office came up to tell me that the mayor had been killed and that I'd better get down there. So we went back down there, and there was George with the bullet holes still in him. White had left George's office, went across the building to the other side, the legislative side, killed the gay supervisor, Harvey Milk, and then went outside to a coffee shop.
Several years later -- and this was what really scared me -- several years later, when the evidence was produced as a result of Freedom of Information, he had a list of people scheduled to be executed by him, and I was on that list. Had I stayed in to have coffee, as I occasionally did, with whichever guest came in to see the mayor, and he would invite me to stick around -- I didn't stick around on that occasion, I wasn't invited to stick around. Had I still been there, this interview would be conducted with somebody else.
Tavis: That's a perfect place to close our conversation and I wish I had more time. We didn't even scratch the surface of the great stuff in this book that I'm glad you finally got around to writing about your wonderful life. What do you make, then, of whatever God had and still has in store for you, this small Black kid from Mineola, Texas who ascends to the speakership of the California assembly, then the mayor of San Francisco, to the wonderful story now that you told, you were not in that place at that moment when that went down. It's all in the book, but I suspect you know now what your purpose has been all these years.
Brown: I really think, Tavis, that it's not over for me. I think that I was equipped, probably right out of the womb, with skills and ability that I didn't even know I had. And on the way, I've had great assistance from people -- assistance to get into college and what have you -- and it has all come from my rare ability for a politician to listen to others and to act on behalf of others before I act on behalf of myself. I think that was my mission, that is my mission, and that's what I still do.
Tavis: He is one of the most fascinating persons I have ever met. When I first moved to Los Angeles many years ago as a young kid working for Tom Bradley, I got to L.A. and the first person I wanted to meet beyond the mayor who I was working for was Willie Brown. So I actually -- he won't recall this, but I stalked him out at a few occasions till I finally got a chance to meet him, and what an honor and a blessing it is for me all these years later to have him on this program with me.
His name, of course, Willie Brown. The book is called "Basic Brown: My Life and Our Times," and again, it is a wonderful read. I highly recommend it. Mayor, good to see you.
Brown: Thank you, Tavis.
Tavis: Glad to have you here.
Brown: Nice to see you, too.
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