Willie – The Man, the Myth and the Era
Texas Roots/
California Dreams
By
Marcus McGee
SMASHWORDS EDITION
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Pegasus Books/Marcus McGee on Smashwords
Willie – The Man, The Myth and the Era
Texas Roots/California Dreams
Copyright © 1995, 2011 by Marcus McGee
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ISBN - 978-1-4524-3773-6
Comments about Willie – The Man, the Myth and the Era, Texas Roots and requests for additional copies, book club rates and author speaking appearances may be addressed to Marcus McGee or Pegasus Books c/o Ms. McGhee, P.O. Box 235, Neptune, New Jersey, 07754, or you can send your comments and requests via e-mail to marcus.media@yahoo.com
PREFACE
There is no justification for anyone ever apologizing for whatever my successes may be. I enjoy my success and don’t ask people to lament for any of my failures.
Willie Lewis Brown, Jr.
In this book, the result of my inquiry into the life of Willie Lewis Brown, Jr. and the recent history of the California State Legislature, I hope to do two things: to preserve intact an objective perception of the man by putting on record his background, his life, his achievements and failures, his perceived strengths and weaknesses; secondly and more particularly, to establish what effect he has had on public policy, to establish his impact on California, Californians, and by extension, Americans, however subtle or profound.
I further hope to put his life and accomplishments in perspective with reference to the specific era in which he has served the State. Neither Mr. Brown nor the public would suffer the attempts by a writer to explain away his actions and positions, so in this inquiry I will make every attempt to present his life from varying perspectives in a sincere effort to achieve objectivity.
In spite of the fact that I have spent years researching Willie Brown, I have probably had and continue to have more mistaken impressions about him than anyone. With each anecdote I have heard, with each conversation I have pursued, with each interview I have convened, I discovered more intricate details and nuances of the man’s character and life.
He was, by all means, a challenging subject to consider, larger than life and enigmatic. For this reason I have attempted to be implacably thorough in the process of gathering information about him, and I hope to be as implacably thorough in sharing what I have discovered through my careful inquiry.
During interviews for the book, I was frequently asked why I had taken such an interest in Willie Brown. Over the years I had myself pondered the same question. Much of my interest, I imagine, related to a profound love of history, and specifically, history relating to great men. Plutarch’s Parallel Lives of Illustrious Romans and Greeks as well as other individual histories have influenced me almost as much as the Bible. Alexander is no less a hero to me than David.
By mentioning Plutarch, I am, in no way comparing this history of Willie Brown to any of his histories, but I cannot help holding his objective and scholarly approach as a model for my own work. If my inquiry is not as enduring, it is not for lack of greatness in my subject, but some deficiency of my own, which might not allow me to present him accurately.
Willie Brown, for the influence he has had on the most influential state in the most influential country in our world, certainly qualifies as a great man, and his life has indeed been an illustrious one.
From his humble east Texas beginnings to his ragged course in San Francisco where he, as a young lawyer, worked to keep pimps and prostitutes out of jail, from his days as a bold freshman assemblyman with the audacity to vote against “Big Daddy” Jess Unruh to his emergence on the national scene at the 1972 Democratic Convention in Miami, from a dark-horse ascendancy to the speakership to the carefully-wagered, protracted battles and campaigns in which he’s collected and spent millions upon millions of dollars, and finally, from Proposition 13 which unforgiving, altered the course of the state’s economy and its educational priorities to Proposition 140 which, according to many, will ultimately diminish the effectiveness of the state legislature, Californians have come to know his indomitable spirit which has, on so many occasions, snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, overcome anger, poverty, and prejudice.
Yet, what fascinated me most was hearing Willie Brown speak— no one did it better. Even from the first time I heard him, I was inspired and, after learning about him, I embraced his as a life I would chronicle.
One foggy night in the late 1970s, I found myself in my father’s silver Chevy Vega, drained and driving from work, frustrated with the limitations of late Sunday night A.M. radio. After fumbling a few minutes with the analog dial between freeway lane selections, I stumbled onto a broadcast from the University of Oregon and decided I’ d listen a moment before finding something more interesting.
A stoic, modulated voice introduced a speaker, who immediately began. The speaker, I thought, did not open badly. I considered myself a capable critic because I had competed five years in high school and college speech and debate. Slowly though, I realized that this particular speaker was more than ordinary. Ironically enough, I do not remember the subject, but I can say the speech was probably the best presented, most logical and eloquent one I had ever heard in my life.
The brilliance of the oration had eclipsed the message. I became, in that instant, an ardent admirer of that speaker. After much applause the moderator introduced the orator: Willie Brown, Jr. The name was familiar relating to his failed 1974 bid for the speakership (I had casually followed the story as an eighth grader), and, determined to hear him speak again, I pulled over and wrote his name down.
In the ensuing years, I made it a point to go out and watch him speak as often as I could. Through research I found that he was a California assemblyman from District 17 in San Francisco. From that day on, I zealously followed his career until he became Speaker of the Assembly, after which time I noted that public attitudes about him began to polarize.
A job as a waiter at Fat City in Old Sacramento provided me money for school as well as a glimpse of non-official political debate from assemblypersons and state senators who occasioned the restaurant. From table-side, I eavesdropped intently as the speaker was vilified by large, seemingly powerful white men who were often animatedly angry to the point of foot stomping and table pounding as they, veins popping at the sides of their heads, muttered foul and occasionally overtly racist epithets and swore they were going to “get him.”
Yet through all the anger, the hate, the spite and the frustration I, as an awe-struck black kid, sensed that they respected the man. I myself had often stood alone defending him in hot disputes with chauvinistically conservative associates.
However, I left Sacramento for a few years for the entertainment industry in Los Angeles and returned to find him probably the most influential person in the state. I had also returned to direct and produce a musical theatrical production at the Sacramento Community Center Theater in 1990. Because I knew the family, I was able to get a job at Frank Fat’s Restaurant, the most famous and popular political hangout in the State Capitol, where I intended to invite legislators, lobbyists, and other influential persons to my opening, with the hope of finding investors.
It was at Frank Fat’s that I finally met the man I had respected and followed for so many years. My first formal words to him were genuinely friendly, painstakingly planned and completely ignored. Certain that he did not hear me the first time, I spoke again only to be eyed contemptuously for having the audacity to address him.
I was insulted enough to mutter a few creative epithets of my own, while reflecting on the many times I had passionately defended his name and actions over the years. I had come close to losing long friendships in such disputes, and yet this arrogant person scoffed at me for admiring him enough to speak a greeting! He had the nerve to treat me like a waiter!
As time went by I found he had qualities other than arrogance: namely conceit and rudeness. I did, however, soon realize I had perhaps taken his attitude too personally because, with respect to the public, it seemed he was at least consistent with his arrogance, his conceit, and his rudeness. Assured the status of the plebeian public, I was able to view him with a little more objectivity.
Slowly, though over the course of the next two years, I realized that, in spite of the fact that I had studied the public man for so long, I knew nothing about his personal nature, so I watched and listened. During the legislative sessions, Tuesday and Wednesday nights at Frank Fat’s swarmed with statesmen and politicians, analysts and lobbyists, staffers and media personalities. By that time, I was managing the place.
I do not exaggerate when I say that, on some nights, the topic of discussion at over half the tables in the restaurant involved Willie Brown. I overheard one burly, red-faced man say that, if he could have gotten away with it, he would have walked across the room and strangled Mr. Brown where he sat. Many others referred to him as “the most brilliant mind in California.”
In short, those who did not like him saw arrogance where admirers saw confidence— the conceit, depending on perspective, was simply self-awareness— the rudeness was also directness. These qualities, however perceived, were absolutely necessary to a person in his position.
And so I finally reconciled myself to the fact that my initial disappointment with Willie Brown was based on my fifteen year-old romantic notion of what I thought he should have been and not on what he truly was and needed to be. I also learned that he was affected by retinitis pigmentosa, which had begun to limit his vision. It is probable that he did not see me or hear my timid voice that first time I addressed him.
As I reflected on my own egotistical misapprehension and continued to watch him, I noticed that he was usually warm and friendly, personable to even the most insistent dipsomaniac who offered unrequested advice or a divergent opinion on an issue. It was then that Willie Brown became a real person to me, a person who no doubt had his hopes, his flaws, his fears, his prejudices, his disappointments, and all the other joys and pains of mortal existence.
While contemplating his humanity, I wanted to know his story, his life, so I redoubled my efforts at researching him, and yet there were many things I could not research in libraries. No person as a child or even a college student decides upon a destiny as Assembly Speaker for the state of California. Many random factors create such destinies.
As I considered William Shakespeare’s observation that “some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them,” I could not help but wonder what factors were necessary in the creation of this enigma called Willie Brown. In that I sensed an interesting story and consequently decided to produce a written biography about the man.
Yet even as I eagerly took up the task of producing this written history, I had no idea how many people I would be required to interview, how many hours I would spend in libraries poring over newspaper and magazine articles, how much verification I would be obligated to pursue, how consumed my own life would be with the life of Willie Brown— all this before I could even begin writing.
In the sequel, after over two hundred fifty interviews and more than a thousand hours of library research, I had before me an overwhelming amount of data on Willie Brown and needed an organized process for utilizing it. First, the tape-recorded interviews had to be transcribed and these, together with notes and written articles, had to be categorized according to a format generated for the book.
I had decided that, with respect to interviews, I would work from the periphery to the center. In other words, I started with individuals furthest outside Mr. Brown’s immediate circle and hoped to eventually work my way to a final series of interviews with him. It seemed to be the most logical and efficient approach, enabling me to be completely and thoroughly informed by others on all aspects of his life so that I would be able to pose to him those questions which no one but Willie Brown could answer.
Through it all, I gained an education on the process and history of government in California and the players inside and outside the legislature who have affected that process. Consequently, this project, which I had hoped to complete in two years, had stretched on to five and a half years before I realized that a temporal deadline for completion was unrealistic. I would take whatever time was required to produce a thorough, accurate representation of Mr. Brown.
In December 1993, I met with Willie Brown’s daughter, Susan, first for a Mayor David Dinkins retirement function in Manhattan, and the next day in a coffee shop called Dean and Delucca in the Soho section of New York City, as the winter’s first snow fell quietly outside.
We discussed the book and her father as I interviewed her. And yet in Susan I saw still another Willie Brown, through the eyes of a fiercely-protective and admiring daughter who, with a glimmer in her eyes, recalled a warm childhood, a wonderful grandmother, and a magical occasion she flew to Italy to meet her father for dinner and dancing.
Having read a few chapters of the book, she asked if it was to be a work about her father or about the California State Legislature. It was a practical question and one I concluded many readers would ask. I had in the chapters she read, after all, devoted much of the text to background information.
The man she knew was simply a father, who had a life independent of Sacramento. And indeed, many who know him in the social circles of San Francisco would agree. It is impossible however, to consider Willie Brown separate of the California State Legislature. They are inextricable so that to consider one separate of the other is a disservice to both.
That is why, within this inquiry, my object is to first establish a background and then to illuminate his words and actions within the established context. While I might hint at a possible reason or motivation based on what I’ve heard or observed, the reader will be the ultimate judge.
The major focus with respect to the actions and motivations I have chosen to illuminate involved an examination of personal character in order to establish what manner of man stands before the world in the person of Willie Brown. If I have been able to do this effectively, then it is my privilege to put before the Americans and the world-at-large the life and history of Willie Brown, Jr.
If I have written anything that overstates the truth and indicates or reflects my own subjectivity, my own inadequacies, prejudices, and flaws, I beg that the public will forgive me. If I have written anything that understates the truth or indicates any disrespect for my subject, his family, or his right to a private life, then I beg that Willie Brown will forgive me.
Willie – The Man, the Myth and the Era
MINEOLA
Mineola had nothing, absolutely nothing going for it!1
Willie Lewis Brown, Jr.
It was springtime in Mineola, a small, backward, East Texas town where whites lived on one side of the tracks and blacks lived on the other. The month of March was a wonderful time in the black community. People had started breaking up the land in order to plant after Easter. Peach trees flowered in pink and dewberry vines produced white flowers around bushes and rotting tree stumps. The countryside was a lush green with wildflowers, accenting the hills with bright colors.