The Browns of California

by Miriam Pawel

  By the summer of 1995, the construction of the $1.3 million, two-and-a-half-story building on Harrison Street was complete, a gray corrugated metal façade with a sweeping entrance ramp that led into the largely white interior. “People are moving to the suburbs to be protected from minorities, poor people and poor schools,” Jerry said. “We need cooperative caring6 as opposed to excessive competition.” He had always liked communal living arrangements that included dining halls, whether in the seminary or International House. In Oakland, the residents included Jacques Barzaghi, the adviser and friend who had never been far from Jerry since they first met in the early 1970s, and two strangers, the computer consultant who wired the building and the woman who sold them kitchen equipment. She prepared dinner most nights for whoever was around. One of the frequent guests was Anne Gust.

  From a soundproof radio booth in the Oakland commune, Jerry broadcast a daily live two-hour show on which he interviewed an eclectic assortment of guests he sought out for their intelligence and expertise. “We are going to take apart the conventional wisdom7—the dumb ideas that are wrecking the country, the lies politicians tell, the greed of the corporate high and mighty, the phoniness of the wannabe liberals,” he said on his initial broadcast in 1994. “There are no sacred cows on this show.” He got a good luck call from “Kathy in D.C.,” better known as his sister.

  At first the show was carried by Talk America network, which meant local listeners could tune in only to a late-night rebroadcast on a Sacramento station. In July 1995 the program moved to KPFA in Berkeley, the oldest listener-supported radio station in the country. The Pacifica Radio station, like sister stations WBAI in New York City and KPFK in Los Angeles, was known for its leftist politics. “For the work I want to do in Oakland, this provides an excellent opportunity,”8 Jerry said. “The focus is not political; it’s more social. I want to create new institutions.”

  As he always did, he sought guests he found interesting. A typical show ranged from current events to history, boldface names to obscure literary references. With Gore Vidal,9 Jerry talked about power and the Kennedys, recalling the cynical pragmatism he had sensed from their forays into California. “The word they loved was ‘tough,’ ” Jerry said. “They liked Jesse Unruh in California because he was ‘tough.’ Pat Brown, he was ‘soft.’ ” The Kennedys, Vidal agreed, “never got beyond the pleasures of winning. They were blank.” The idea of emptiness behind a façade of elegance and grace reminded Jerry of an Archibald MacLeish poem about the circus that he often quoted, and he paraphrased the end: “They looked up at the sky. And they saw nothing at all.”

  We the People anticipated the advent of podcasts with a website that enabled listeners to download interviews with such thinker-activists as Helen Caldicott, Noam Chomsky, and Ralph Nader. “These people are not looking at society in the conventional way, but in a deeper and more honest way,” Jerry said. “And the insights from these very different people lead me to a critical position. We’re living in an unsustainable situation that is taking us in the direction of catastrophe—social, moral, and ecological. And it is my interest, perhaps my vocation, to resist that, and to work with others to provide positive alternatives … I’m doing what I know how to do10 and what I have the opportunity to do. It’s part politician, part student, part activist, part seeker.”

  In a talk to the International Transpersonal Association, a group that supported research that integrated spirituality into modern culture, Jerry expanded on his effort to forge new paths to address income inequality, on the death of democracy (“D-E-A-D dead”), and on the limited influence of politicians. “As much as I dislike politics, I have devoted my life to it—out of some form of enlightened masochism or some other deep motive that I have not yet been able to plumb … I am not sick of it, and I am not cynical about it. But I’m not naïve about it.” The key to meaningful political action was in community. “I have moved to a warehouse in Oakland. I have thirteen bedrooms and nine bathrooms. I’m ready for community!11 I believe anything that allows people to work together in a direct honest way is the seed of change—cooperatives, base communities, liberation theology, engaged Buddhism.”

  He repeatedly sidestepped speculation that he had moved to Oakland to restart his political career yet again, though he had confided his plans to close friends before even moving across the bay. “I obviously enjoy running for office,”12 he acknowledged in an interview. “That’s pretty clear.” He continued to attack the political system in his on-air commentaries: “Most contributions are bribes,” and “You think you can collect ten million or twenty million dollars and not let it affect your judgment? Your behavior is influenced, and that is the vice that is destroying us.” He called the 1996 presidential race between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole a choice between “the evil of two lessers.” He said the two parties no longer offered alternative visions: “In a real sense, Democrats represent only a softer, fuzzier version13 of harder-edged Republican policies.” He wrote an opinion piece when he changed his registration to Decline to State, the California equivalent of Independent. “You can say I have separated myself from the Democratic Party, but I say the Democratic Party has forgotten its Democratic and populist roots.”

  Jerry began to show up at Oakland churches, benefits, community forums, and City Council meetings. He invited labor leaders and ministers to his loft for wine and cheese. He spoke during debates about waterfront development. By Thanksgiving 1996, the Oakland Tribune ran a front page story that speculated about a 1998 run for mayor. Political insiders were dubious. “Let’s face it. I think his time has passed,”14 said City Council member Ignacio de la Fuente, a mayoral contender himself. Jerry lobbied openly for an appointment to the city’s Port Commission and was rejected. The former governor was reduced to the sidelines, figuratively and literally, cheering on a City Council ally as he headed into executive session on a controversial issue.

  Jerry was clear about his ambitions in the summer of 1997 when he contacted Ernest J. Yanarella,15 a political science professor at the University of Kentucky who had written about sustainable cities. Jerry asked Yanarella to help formulate a green plan for Oakland that might serve as a centerpiece of a mayoral campaign, a potential prelude to one last race for higher office. Yanarella and three graduate students formed “the Green Team” and worked up a draft for Jerry’s vision of Oakland Ecopolis, a word derived from the Greek oikos, house, and polis, city.

  On October 28, 1997, in the kitchen of We the People, dressed in what had become his trademark black collarless shirt, Jerry announced his candidacy for Oakland mayor. He pledged to use all he had learned in politics and government to help revive the troubled city. “Government at this level is no different than at any other level,” he said. “All the things that I worked on in Sacramento, or failed to work on, are at stake right here.16 This will be another opportunity to make the democratic process work.”

  Once again, he viewed himself as a catalyst: “While I don’t purport to have the answer to this very difficult problem of racial polarization and class difference, which is getting worse, I see this one city as a place where these problems can be dealt with. Because there is enough balance among the different groups—white, African American, Latino, Asian—that out of that conversation with enough goodwill it’s my hope that we can get at the problem of learning, the problem of shared culture, the problem of advancing in our society. That’s all I can do. And I intend to walk neighborhoods and walk streets and talk to people and see opportunities to make things work, on the ground.”

  Mexicans, Chinese, Filipinos, and other Latino and Asian immigrants had turned Oakland into one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the country, about 43 percent black, 28 percent white, 14 percent Hispanic, and 14 percent Asian. The more established black community, though a shrinking percentage of the population, had maintained political control of City Hall, and to a lesser degree the school district. Jerry was taking on the political machine in his somewhat improbable quest to
become the city’s first white mayor in two decades. “It is a tight little club17 that someone has to break up,” he said. “Many people remember good times in California, and more often than not, they associate those times with either myself or my father.”

  Jerry’s lofty vision of Oakland as “an ecopolis of the future—a city that is both in harmony with the environment and in harmony for itself,” was short-lived. He posted on his website the academics’ draft proposal, which referred to Italian hill towns, not as a model for Oakland but as inspiration. The reference triggered derision about the latest incarnation of Governor Moonbeam, and the plan was shelved. The candidate instead adopted a more conventional platform: less crime, better schools, more business.

  His timing, again, was excellent.

  For much of the past century, Oakland had been dominated by Republican families like the Knowlands, owners of the Oakland Tribune. Joseph Knowland was elected to the House of Representatives and his son William to the Senate, a rising star until he lost the 1958 race for governor to Pat Brown. Oakland’s white elite lived in Mediterranean villas in the hills, with views of the bay and San Francisco. The middle class lived in the foothills, the working class in the flatlands. When shipbuilding subsided after the war, there were jobs with the railroad, nearby factories like Nabisco and Coca-Cola, the canneries clustered around the port, and Kaiser Permanente, offshoot of the first health maintenance organization, founded by Henry Kaiser to provide healthcare for workers at his shipyards. During the postwar years, Oakland’s black population grew from 3 percent in 1940 to 12 percent in 1950 and 23 percent in 1960.

  During the 1960s, Oakland became a prime example of the displacement and unrest that followed “urban renewal,” code words for leveling the homes of poor people. New highways that cut across the city destroyed neighborhoods, displacing thousands of families, most of them black. The political unrest and struggle to maintain a sense of community gave birth to the Black Panthers, founded in Oakland in 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. They conducted armed patrols to protect residents who found the almost all-white police force more of a threat than protection. Before they became a national force, embroiled in controversy and violence and targeted by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, the Panthers focused on community services in Oakland. They ran community health clinics and a free breakfast program for children. In 1973, Seale ran a credible race for mayor. Two years later, Black Panther Elaine Brown won 40 percent of the vote in a City Council campaign, and in 1977 the Panthers helped Lionel Wilson become the first Democrat, and the first black, elected mayor. In 1983, Robert C. Maynard bought the Oakland Tribune, becoming the first black editor and owner of a major daily newspaper in the United States.

  The 1980s in Oakland were bleak. Neighborhoods were riven by gang wars and a drug trade that flourished with the crack cocaine epidemic in the latter part of the decade. The 1989 San Francisco earthquake caused extensive damage in Oakland. Two years later, the worst fire in California history ripped through the Oakland Hills, killing twenty-five people and destroying thousands of homes. Sandwiched between the two natural disasters was the 1990 recession, deepening the city’s economic woes. Downtown became a ghost town. Oakland became known for its high homicide rates and low educational test scores, which drove out more middle-class families as well as longtime business anchors.

  By the time Jerry announced his candidacy, Oakland’s downtown was beginning to show signs of life, thanks to the strong economy fueled by the dot-com boom centered nearby. In 1998, the year Jerry ran for mayor, Google was founded and Apple introduced the first iMac. The percentage of households with computers was still a minority, but more than double the 15 percent in 1990. Just thirty miles north of Silicon Valley, San Francisco became a haven for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and Internet start-ups. Soaring real estate prices sparked new interest in Oakland, a short BART ride away with prime office space at half the cost. The area was still deserted after work, but free land and $90 million in city subsidies had attracted government agencies. Earlier development had skipped over Oakland and saturated the outlying suburbs; now worsening traffic and high gas prices spurred interest in Oakland’s easy access to mass transit. Crime was down, although Oakland’s homicide rate was still double that of New York City. At most of the high schools, less than 10 percent of tenth graders read at grade level. Those statistics didn’t deter the Gen Xers overrunning the Bay Area and interested in affordable urban housing. Eager to shed its status as poor cousin of the city across the bay, Oakland was poised to embrace a national figure as its champion.

  Jerry canceled his subscription to the New York Times and took the Oakland Tribune. He held dozens of small house meetings around the city. He collected contributions of no more than $100 each, and he lent his campaign $108,000 during the month before the June 1998 primary. His slogan was “Oaklanders First,” with a drawing of the tree that gave the city its name reproduced on green campaign T-shirts. “Dealing with racial division, school improvement, friendly streets, and a beautiful, interesting downtown and an interesting city—that is big stuff. But we can have some impact18 on that,” he said at a campaign event. “If you want to have study groups about Serbia, I think that’s good. But I don’t think you can have an impact. The big leverage point for us as human beings is to deal with what is within our grasp, and that is what’s closest in hand.”

  On Election Day, June 2, 1998, four television satellite trucks arrived at the We the People loft in the early afternoon to snag good positions for live broadcasts when the polls closed. A dozen journalists from publications including USA Today and the Korea Times showed up in the evening as the block party began, with barbecued ribs, the Oakland band the Naked Barbies, and dancing in the street. Around ten fifteen P.M., after chants of “Jer-ry, Jer-ry, Jer-ry,” the mayor-elect came out to address the crowd. Jerry had beaten ten other candidates, captured more black votes than the six black candidates put together, and avoided a November runoff by winning 60 percent of the vote. “I think the people voted for change,”19 he said. “People want to see the bars come down from the windows, and better schools. They want to see this city stop wasting money.”

  A few hours later, he was on ABC’s Good Morning America, followed by appearances on CNN and CNBC. Vice President Al Gore called with congratulations. Oakland readied for its celebrity mayor, returning to elected office after a sixteen-year hiatus. “It’s like sitting in the stands or being down on the field,”20 he said. “One, you’re watching the team; and the other, you are the captain of the team.”

  Jerry immediately turned his attention to qualifying a measure for the November ballot that would change Oakland’s charter to a strong mayor form of government; instead of presiding over the City Council, he would run the city when he took office in January. “It’s the city where we can rejuvenate an active political movement in this country—that’s my commitment,” he told a California Labor Federation Convention meeting in Oakland a month after the election. “Look at the forgotten places, the urban apartheid embedded within this successful economy, and you will find numbers of people living in neighborhoods where forty percent of them are below the poverty line. That situation has doubled in the last twenty years. This is the test of Democratic leadership21 and the commitment to a society that really works for people. That’s what I’ve been talking about, and now I have a chance to deliver.”

  As he had as governor, he made four promises when he took office on January 4, 1999: to reduce crime, bring ten thousand residents to downtown, use charter schools to spur school reform, and emphasize artistic culture. “Integrated, international, artistic, both rich and poor at the same time, a place of creativity and hope—there is Oakland: a microcosm of the unfinished American agenda,” he said. “Today I make a solemn pledge to be a catalyst for change.”22

  Whatever his impact on Oakland, a subject that would be debated long after he had moved on, Oakland had a profound impact on Jerry Brown. He experienced the frustration o
f local officials battling dictates from a distant bureaucracy. The city altered his views about schools and prison. He became convinced local governments should have more power. All those ideas would reshape the state in years to come.

  From his earliest days in politics, Jerry had thought about people who would be affected by his actions, in particular the majority who didn’t even bother to vote. Now he met them. “I’d never met people who had a gun put in their back.23 Not once, or twice, but frequently,” he said. “You face a specific dead body24 on a well-traveled street, or the vacant lot that will soon become a condo tower, or the school down the street where half the kids don’t graduate. No theory here. Not much comfort from partisan rhetoric. Just hands-on reality with names and faces. Management at the human scale versus pontification from on high.”

  He became a common sight on the streets and around Lake Merritt often walking Anne Gust’s black lab, Dharma, stopping to talk with drug dealers, parolees, homeless people, and business owners. He liked the vitality of the street life. He walked over to investigate a drive-by shooting he saw from his apartment. He browbeat federal housing officials to cancel Section 8 vouchers for a neighborhood crack house. He helped a bar owner get a karaoke permit. He carried printouts of daily crime stats in his pocket.

  From the governor who had argued inaction was often the best course, he became the mayor who rammed through development projects as fast as possible. “You have to be able to produce,”25 he said. “This is what the world is about.” From the outraged talk show host on left-wing radio he became the pragmatic mayor who invited the Navy and Marines to conduct military training exercises in Oakland to prepare troops for urban combat. The exercises brought the city several million dollars, and pickets outside Jerry’s house.