Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown is known by some as the godfather of California politics, but he wants to be remembered for helping people.
“If you are in the business of politics, you come forward with the foundation that really keeps families together, processing together, sharing their resources,” he said in an interview with BNG. “I was from that kind of a family. My uncle, my mother, my grandmother, my sister, my brother, all the way back from Texas. So, when one brings up the word ‘connecting,’ I literally, every day of my life, think of what I can do to help somebody.”
Sen. Kamala Harris greets former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown after a service celebrating the life of Mayor Ed Lee at San Francisco City Hall in San Francisco, Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017. (Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
Brown is known for his service as mayor and for being the long-serving speaker of the California Assembly. He’s also known as a mentor to vice president and presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
The legendary politician also has been back in the headlines this year because of a story told by Donald Trump that Brown says was another Trump fabrication.
In August, Trump said: “I know Willie Brown very well. In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him. We thought maybe this was the end.”
It appears Trump may have confused Brown with another politician, either former California Gov. Jerry Brown, who surveyed wildfire damage in 2018 with Trump but no issues with their helicopter ride were reported, or former California state senator Nate Holden, who says he was in a helicopter with Trump in 1990 that nearly crashed.
Brown threatened to sue Trump for the lie he refused to recant. He said it was an intentional slur not only of him but of Harris.
“It never, never happened, OK,” Brown told BNG. “He was on a helicopter ride in 1991 or ’92 with a person named Nate Holden, who was a state senator one time, along with being a city councilman in Los Angeles. Former President Trump was trying to buy from the school district of Los Angeles a piece of property called the Ambassador Hotel, where Robert Kennedy was shot and killed. He wanted to buy that spot to build a Trump tower, and he got Nate Holden to try to help him. He was on a helicopter with Nate Holden. (Trump’s) age affected his ability to recall.”
Brown, who is 12 years older than Trump, says he has a better recall than the Republican presidential candidate.
At age 90, Brown begins each day doing business in San Francisco. “My day starts at 5:30 and goes until I fall asleep,” he said.
San Francisco is his adopted hometown. He moved there from Texas as a young man because of what the city had to offer. That move was due in large part to his grandmother and her faith, he explained.
“My grandmother raised me while my mother worked in people’s kitchens in Dallas.”
“My grandmother raised me while my mother worked in people’s kitchens in Dallas. My mother would come home on weekends and bring excess groceries from where she was working, but my grandmother’s faith is what got me to leave Texas and come to San Francisco to attend college. My grandmother was a church lady, and I knew I couldn’t let her down.”
In San Francisco, he kept up his own faith, he added. “I liked going to the Baptist church, AME church and the Holiness church. I knew that God was in all three denominations, so I tried my best to make sure he knew I would go to all three.”
Eventually, Brown settled at an AME church where he is still a member.
Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown speaks during a celebration of life Service held for the late San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee on December 17, 2017, in San Francisco. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
When he first arrived in the city by the bay, he lived with his uncle and started out working his way up from being a dishwasher to being mayor.
Along the way, he met Harris, who in 1990 was hired as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County, Calif. Four years later, Brown — who was speaker of the California Assembly — appointed her to the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and later to the California Medical Assistance Commission.
From there, Harris eventually got a job at City Hall working in the city attorney’s office, then was elected district attorney of San Francisco and later attorney general for the state of California.
Asked if he thought Harris would be where she is today, Brown is quick to answer “no” but adds he knew there was something about her the city needed. “She has grown in talent from the time she was part of my world.”
He credits President Joe Biden with highlighting Harris’ talents on a national stage.
Although the Democratic Party leadership didn’t have her in mind, “Joe Biden did,” he said. “She had his back during the entire process of Democrats wanting to replace him. Former President Barack Obama wanted it to go through the convention process. However, the entire process of Vice President Harris being where we are today was all orchestrated by Biden, independent of all these other people. He was a solo act, and we are really indebted to him.”
When Brown looks back at his own life, he only has one regret: not running for president himself. But he’s hopeful his youngest daughter, who is in politics, one day will.
