WILLIE BROWN, A BIOGRAPHY
By James Richardson
University of California Press
Publication Date: November, 1996

Originally published in The San Jose Mercury News

Looking at the life and career of San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, we are left with the great and usual questions surrounding all political reform in the United States.

An African-American born and raised in segregated, Depression-era East Texas, Brown entered California politics during the civil rights years as a militant-talking advocate of African-American rights...that is, as the ultimate reformer. Within 30 years he had reached one of the highest levels of political power in this state--Speaker of the California General Assembly--before trading it in late last year for the mayorship.

In order to gain the political position necessary to effect change, a reformer must make compromises with the powers-that-be. Where does the reformer draw the line and say, “Enough. This is my bottom line. I will give up no more.”? How many concessions does it take before the reformer trades in all but a shell of his original beliefs and becomes just one more cog in the political system--nothing more than a running self-justification for his own existence--and has Willie Brown crossed over that line? For what purpose is all of this power: self-aggrandizement or some greater goal? What has become of Willie Brown’s liberalism and his position on African-American rights?

Don’t look for any conclusions, or even any tough questions, in James Richardson’s not-necessarily-authorized biography of Willie Brown (Brown did not read the book nor did he have veto power over its contents, but Richardson writes throughout the book that Brown never does anything that is not in his own self-interest, and Brown cooperated with the research that went into the writing of this book). More akin to an L. Frank Baum tale than a critical political work, “Willie Brown, A Biography” asks us to follow Brown’s yellow-brick-road to power, pausing in awe at the many glorious adventures and harrowing events and wicked-witch-slayings along the way. If any real attention is to be paid to that little man pulling the levers behind the screen, readers must do so on their own.

Willie Brown is certainly the great enigma of our time. He won last year’s San Francisco mayor’s race with the backing of such diverse political elements as the African-American community, union members, homeless advocates, tenants rights workers, and gays...surely one of the few modern politicians to be able to hold such a Roosevelt-style coalition together. Yet it is rumored that Brown’s law practice is packed with heavy-hitter corporate interests (he refuses to disclose his clients), and he is legendary for his ability to raise political funds from such anti-liberal giants as PG&E and the tobacco industry. And while he often refers to his humble background, Brown is best known for his swinging-bachelor lifestyle, his lavish parties, and his impeccable attire: he is one of the few, if not the only, U.S. mayors to have been featured in a spread in the natty GQ. Finding the center of this storm has not been easy, either for constituents or for journalists.

James Richardson is a newspaper political affairs reporter who covered Brown in the State Legislature and then researched and wrote this book while on sabbatical from the Sacramento Bee. The writer is clearly gushily impressed with the man who calls himself “Da Mayor,” labeling Brown “the P.T. Barnum of California politics, the best show in a state that relentlessly produced bland, blow-dried political leaders.” True, Richardson produces a score of soily anecdotes which tend to show Brown as a backstabbing, lie-to-the-public, wheely-dealy leader. But these are presented either without comment from the author or with superficial analysis or, in the worst cases, simply allowing Brown to get in the last word. After undercutting the leadership goals of another African-American Assemblyman, John Miller of Oakland, Brown cackles “Dear old John Miller was consigned to the scrap heap, in Miller’s eyes, and he sulked in the corner for three years.” Since Brown is the hero of this tale, the reader is naturally expected to down another drink, find a back to slap, and chortle along with the joke.

The author impresses one with the amount of research he clearly put into the project. Richardson has interviewed scores of Brown’s friends, foes, and family members, even tracking down Brown’s father in a rest home shortly before the father’s death. In fact, the book shines brightest in describing Brown’s family life and community upbringing in small-town Mineola, Texas, including descriptions of how Brown’s mouth got him into trouble with the white authorities of that segregated system:

“Even as a young boy, to his grandmother’s horror, Willie challenged the police when they raided the house looking for whiskey [Brown’s uncles operated an illegal whiskey still]. Willie knew enough to ask for a search warrant. He did not know that his uncle, Itsie, was bribing the police and would take care of things later. ... His taunts brought him perilously close to crossing an invisible line, as when a white man once asked him, ‘Say, junior, what time is it?’ using a pejorative term reserved for black males. Willie did not immediately answer. ... Finally he snapped, ‘You guessed my name. Now you can guess what time it is.’ His sisters are still amazed that he was not beaten.”

But there are odd gaps in these personal notes. While we learn such details as the prices of Brown’s suits, there is barely a whisper about his three children throughout the book, and if their names are ever mentioned, I couldn’t find it. And Brown’s divorce is glossed over, allowed to be summed up, without further ado, by the wife of one of Da Mayor’s best friends: “‘Ahhh, they’re getting back [together].’”

Richardson is on shakier ground where he might have been the firmest: talking about events in the legislature in Sacramento. He covers the events like the daily newspaper reporter he was and is: keeping day-to-day score of the horsetrading and ebb and flow of legislative action rather than dealing in any analysis of the long-range effects of the bills passed. Thus, though we learn the details of Brown’s position on many issues, from Prop 13 to insurance reform, but there is no summing up of his legislative record and its effect on the state.

And Richardson is shakier still in areas where he seems to have done little or no research and where he does not have the background to shore up his writing, such as when he talks about the political/social movement within the African-American community. He writes that “Brown’s view of race relations was, in fact, maturing” during the pivotal, violent years at the end of the 60’s, without giving much detail nor any context at all as to what such “maturing” might actually mean. In another such lapse, Richardson breezily dismisses the Black Panther Party as “a group of leather-coated gun-toting militants from the streets of Oakland” though they were far more than that, having had a huge political and ideological effect, for both good and ill, on the political landscape in which Brown operated in his early years. Outside of the realm of electoral politics, Richardson reveals little about that landscape.

Moms Mabley used to tell a joke about an old man who boasted, “I don’t eat meat, I don’t drink liquor, I’ve never touched a woman, I don’t stay up late at night, and I’ve lived to be 103 years old,” prompting a younger man to ask, “What for?” In describing Willie Brown’s awesome governmental/political/fund-raising machine during the years that he was Speaker of the House, Richardson writes that “[t]he whole edifice was based on a simple principle: keeping Assembly members happy. As long as Brown could keep forty-one members happy, he could remain Speaker. As long as he was Speaker, the checks kept coming, and Assembly members remained happy.” Which prompts the question, “What for?” But James Richardson doesn’t ask and so “Willie Brown, A Biography,” doesn’t give any answers.