Introductory Materials

Legal Information

Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the Nation. Oral history is a modern research technique involving an interviewee and an informed interviewer in spontaneous conversation. The taped record is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The resulting manuscript is typed in final form, indexed, bound with photographs and illustrative materials, and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable.

All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Lionel Wilson dated August 29, 1990. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley.

Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Library, University of California, Berkeley 94720, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. The legal agreement with Archie Williams requires that he be notified of the request and allowed thirty days in which to respond.

It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:

Lionel Wilson, Attorney, Judge, and Oakland Mayor, an oral history conducted in 1985 and 1990 by Gabrielle Morris, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1992.

Abstract

Lionel Wilson (b. 1915) Attorney, mayor Attorney, Judge, and Oakland Mayor, 1992, viii, 104 pp.

Education at UC Berkeley, 1932-1938 and Hastings College of the Law, 1946-1949; US Army service, 1942-1945; NAACP and other civic leadership positions; Oakland Economic Development Commission and Corporation; Alameda County municipal and superior court judgeships; election campaigns, 1945-1988; service as mayor of Oakland, California, 1977-1990, including reference to Port of Oakland, Raiders football team and other urban issues.

Introduction by Edward J. Blakely, Department of City and Regional Planning, UC Berkeley.

Interviewed 1985 and 1990 by Gabrielle Morris for the University of California Black Alumni Project.

Acknowledgements

 

The Regional Oral Hisotry Office wishes to express its thanks to the following individuals and organizations whose encouragement and support have made possible the University of California Black Alumni Series

Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.
Rho Chapter and Alpha Nu Omega Chapter

Anonymous

Robert Beck, in memory of Catherine Harroun

Black Alumni Club, University of California

Ruth C. Chance

Chancellor's Office, University of California, Berkeley

W. Russell Ellis, Jr.

William Alexander Gerbode Foundation

Marvin and Arlene Poston

Norvel and Mary Smith

Morris Stulsaft Foundation

Ruth Teiser, in memory of James T. Abajian

Ernst D. and Eleanor Slate Van Loben Sels Foundation

Preface

In America, education has long been an important avenue of opportunity. From our earliest years young people and their families have looked to the nation's colleges and universities to provide the knowledge and experience that will enable the new generation to take its place in the world of work and government and creative activity. In turn, one measure of the quality of American universities and colleges is the breadth and diversity of their students, including how well they reflect the mix of social, racial, and economic backgrounds that make up the communities from which they come and in which they will take part as graduates.

On the West Coast, the University of California at Berkeley has from its beginnings in the 1860s welcomed the sons and daughters of small farmers and shopkeepers, railroad workers and laborers, as well as the children of lawyers and doctors, corporate executives, from many ethnic and racial groups. By 1900, the first black students had enrolled at Berkeley, pioneers of yet another group of Americans eager to seek the best in higher education and to broaden their participation in the life of California and the nation.

Those first black students to come to Cal were indeed on their own, with few fellow black students and no special programs or black faculty to guide them or serve as role models. During the Great Depression of the 1930s a few more came, maybe a hundred at a time in all. The education benefits of the G.I. Bill for men and women who did military service during World War II opened the doors to many more black students to attend Cal in the late 1940s and early 1950s. A census taken in 1966 counted 226 black students, 1.02 percent of all the students at Berkeley. By the fall of 1988, there were 1,944 black graduate and undergraduate students, 6.1 percent of the student body. With changing population and immigration patterns in recent years, as well as active campus recruiting programs, for the first time there is not a single majority ethnic group in the entire undergraduate student body at Berkeley.

Looking back from the 1990s, those early trailblazers are very special. Though few in number, a large percentage of them have gone on to distinguished careers. They have made significant contributions in economics, education, medicine, government, community service, and other fields. It is fitting that a record of their initiative and energy be preserved in their own accounts of their expectations of the University of California, their experiences as students there, and how these experiences shaped their later lives. Their stories are a rich part of the history of the University.

Since 1970, the University has sought to gather information on this remarkable group of students, as noted in the following list of oral histories. In 1983, the UC Black Alumni Club and University officials began planning an organized project to document the lives and accomplishments of its black graduates. In order to provide scholars access to the widest possible array of data the present series includes oral histories conducted for Regional Oral History Office projects on California Government History Documentation and the History of Bay Area Philanthropy, funded by various donors.

With the advice and assistance of the Black Alumni Club, the Chancellor's Office, and the support of other alumni and friends of the University, the Regional Oral History Office of The Bancroft Library is tape-recording and publishing interviews with representative black alumni who attended Cal between the years 1920 and 1956. As a group, these oral histories contain research data not previously available about black pioneers in higher education. As individuals, their stories offer inspiration to young people who may now be thinking of entering the University.

The Regional Oral History Office was established in 1954 to tape record autobiographical interviews with persons significant in the history of California and the West. The Office is under the administrative direction of The Bancroft Library and Willa Baum, Division Head. Copies of all interviews in the series are available for research use in The Bancroft Library and UCLA Department of Special Collections. Selected interviews are also available at other manuscript depositories.

University of California Black Alumni Series

Interviews completed or in process as of September 1991

Allen E. Broussard, On the California Courts, in process.

Walter Gordon, Athlete, Officer in Law Enforcement and Administration, Governor of the Virgin Islands, 1980.*

Ida Jackson, Overcoming Barriers in Education, 1990.*

John Miller, “Issues of Criminal Justice and Black Politics in California” , in Legislative Issue Management and Advocacy, 1961-1974, 1983.*

Charles Patterson, Working for Civic Unity in Government, Business, and Philanthropy, in process.*

Tarea Hall Pittman, NAACP Official and Civil Rights Worker, 1974.*

Marvin Poston, Making Opportunities in Vision Care, 1989.

Emmett J. Rice, Education of an Economist: From Fulbright Scholar to the Federal Reserve Board, 1951-1979, 1991.

William Byron Rumford, Legislator for Fair Employment, Fair Housing, and Public Health, 1973.*

Lionel Wilson, Attorney, Judge, and Oakland Mayor, 1992.

*Interviews conducted for other Regional Oral History Office projects, funded by various donors.

Introduction--by Professor Edward J. Blakely

Who is the hero of our time? If there is a hero of our time, he or she would have to come from Oakland. Nowhere in America has a city presented so many options, opportunities, and challenges as this city on San Francisco Bay. One person in our time--Lionel Wilson--personifies all of the city's glory and its pain.

Lionel is a true son of Oakland. As in so many cases, his character was molded on the playing fields of Oakland. Those playing fields presented him with the most fundamental challenges for using all of his abilities to work effectively with others to forge victory. Oakland's playing fields taught him that it was not color nor family wealth but character that shaped opportunity. This view from Oakland shaped his view of the world.

I have known and seen Oakland through the eyes of Oakland's hero, Lionel Wilson, for over a quarter of a century. I have known him as a friend and colleague, working on linking the University of California at Berkeley to the Oakland community. When I was a student at Berkeley in the early sixties, Lionel Wilson inspired me to devote my time and energies to working with him on youth and community issues in Oakland. He recognized the enormous power of the university as a force for positive change. It had changed his life chances and he felt it could change those of others. We worked together on how to make the entire institution feel this responsibility.

Over the years, we kept working on this same problem from different perspectives. After Lionel Wilson's inauguration as mayor in 1977, one of his first acts was to call upon me to develop a formal program that linked the university and the city. We worked together for twelve years hammering out one of the most successful partnerships in the nation between a major research university and a city. This partnership is a symbol of Lionel's vision. It is this vision and determination that makes the stuff of heroes. He has become more heroic throughout our long friendship. His heroism emerged from the fate of the community.

As Oakland grew in the postwar era, Lionel Wilson served it as a young student leader and later attorney. As the community became engulfed in social strife, he was there to calm the antagonists and win the hearts of the most disenfranchised groups with his persistence in their behalf. As the community matured and needed leadership, he was there to serve as a superior court judge. When Oakland needed someone to forge a new coalition against the ravages of poverty, he was there to lead the effort. As the community made its transition from leadership of the elite to leadership based in the community, he was asked to serve as mayor. He brought world leaders to share in Oakland's renaissance and brought the University of California's headquarters back to its historic venue on Lake Merritt.

In essence, Lionel Wilson has made the community of Oakland live up to its promise to him and, thereby, to all of its citizens. He has made Oakland the center of his life and, in doing so, he has pushed and pulled many lives to give more to their community than they could have ever anticipated. He has done this by his example, his leadership, and his attention to people. His view of the world starts with how he can serve, not what he can get. These are the qualities of a hero. Certainly, Lionel Wilson is Oakland's hero, if not the hero for all of us in these times.

Edward J. Blakeley is professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of California. He is the executive director of the University-Oakland Metropolitan Forum, a parternship between the University of California at Berkeley, Mills College, Holy Names College, Hayward State University, and the Peralta Community Colleges. He received his masters' degree in history at Berkeley in 1963 and his doctorate from UCLA. He received the San Francisco Foundation Award in 1990 for his services to the Bay Area. He has been a friend and advisor to Lionel Wilson since 1962.

Interview History--Lionel Wilson

Lionel Wilson is one of those whom The Bancroft Library most wished to interview for its project on the accomplishments of early African-American alumni of the university. A 1939 graduate of the Berkeley campus and 1949 graduate of Hastings College of Law, Lionel Wilson went on to become, in 1960, one of the first persons of his race to be appointed to the bench in California and, in 1977, the first minority mayor of Oakland, a city of 385,000.

Five interviews were recorded between January 1985 and August 1990. The first was conducted in the formal, dark-panelled mayor's office in the neoclassical 1920s Oakland City Hall, and the later ones in streamlined contemporary quarters across the street where city administrative offices were moved when City Hall was declared unsafe--symbolic of the condition of much municipal infrastructure of the period. The sessions were sandwiched in among the mayor's numerous managerial and political responsibilities, with a hiatus in 1986-1987 while Wilson recovered from a spell of heart trouble.

Although brief, Mayor Wilson's comments provide insight on a dramatic period in the history of Oakland and illuminate the problems and promise of the complex urban issues of the 1960s-1980s. Wilson's narrative recalls his experience at the heart of self-help efforts that created a sizable and viable black political structure in the East Bay, resulting in a shift of the city's leadership from primarily downtown business executives to community-based multicultural spokespersons. Interestingly, he mentions several traditional corporate figures as taking the lead in broadening representation in city decisionmaking.

The success of the movement is reflected in his comments on being a pioneer on the Alameda County courts, appointment to increasingly important civic committees, and leadership of a vigorous and controversial local antipoverty program. A possible clue to Wilson's style can be found in recurring references throughout the interview to his love of sports. As Professor Edward Blakely notes in his introduction to the oral history, the mayor has been active in competitive sports since schooldays. In 1991, Wilson is reported to continue to challenge all comers on the tennis court. Wilson is of medium build and speaks softly but, as he speaks of his long defense of Oakland as home base for the Raiders football team, one senses that he is a tough competitor who does not give up easily.

Thanks are due to Oakland Tribune librarian Yae Shinomiya for her friendly efficiency in providing access to the paper's clip files on Mayor Wilson, which were invaluable in preparing for the interviews. The interview tapes were transcribed and lightly edited in the Regional Oral History Office and sent to Judge Wilson for review in April 1991, after his retirement as mayor. He read it over carefully and corrected names and dates as required.

Brief Biography--Lionel Wilson

• 1915 Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Jules and Louise Wilson
• 1918 Wilson family moved to Oakland
• 1932 Graduated from McClymonds High School with honors, worked as a newspaper boy
• 1939 B.A., economics, University of California, Berkeley; student employment as a porter, dishwasher, and sugar factory laborer; played semi-professional baseball and basketball
• 1940-1942 Maintenance worker at Alameda Naval Air Station; recreation staff, North Oakland YMCA
• 1943-1946 First sergeant, U.S. Army in Europe
• 1946-1949 University of California, Hastings College of Law
• 1950 Began law practice with George Vaughns in Oakland; president, Berkeley NAACP; board member, South Berkeley YMCA
• 1953 Ran for Berkeley City Council with Ura Harvey, candidate for Berkeley school board
• 1955 Ran for Berkeley City Council, with Vivian O. Marsh, planning commissioner and past president State Association of Colored Women
• 1959 Metoyer, Wilson, and Wilmont Sweeney form new law firm; elected president revived East Bay Democratic Club; secretary, Berkeley-Albany Bar Association
• 1960 Appointed to Oakland Municipal Court by Governor Edmund G. Brown, Sr.; named vice chairman of [Oakland] Public Advisory Committee on Education
• 1964 Appointed to Alameda County Superior Court by Governor Brown; named to Oakland Museum board; opposed citywide school boycott
• 1965 Elected chairman of Oakland Economic Development Council, which administered local anti-poverty program funded by federal government; held first public forums of neighborhood advisory councils
• 1967 Recommended for new federal judgeship is San Jose; reorganized OECD independent of city government after repeated controversies with mayor, regional, and federal Office of Economic Opportunity, and others

1. I Youth and Education1

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Boyhood in Oakland

Morris

What I'd like to do is start at the beginning. I'll ask you a little bit about growing up in Oakland, how your family came to move here, and what it was like to be a youngster in the black community in the twenties.

Wilson

It was a lot different community then. The black community was so much smaller. I was just under four when we moved to Oakland, and I don't think there were ten thousand blacks in the East Bay at that time. It was a pretty small community.

Morris

Would that be San Francisco too?

Wilson

I would think so, yes. I said East Bay, but probably in the whole Bay Area there weren't many more than that at that time.

Morris

How did you come to leave New Orleans?

Wilson

My mother [Louise Wilson] had a brother named Ponce Barrios living in Oakland, who had come out to work in the shipyards in World War I. So then he talked to my mother and father [Jules Wilson] and convinced them that this was a better place to raise their children, that they would have better opportunities here. Then he sent for them to come out. At that time there were three of us; two younger brothers besides myself, who were born in New Orleans also.

Morris

They must have been tiny if you weren't quite four.

Wilson

I wasn't quite four, that's right.

Morris

So you don't remember New Orleans at all, or did you go back?

Wilson

I remembered very little about New Orleans, yes. My mother used to say I used to go to the stores at that age, but I remembered very little about New Orleans until I went back. I didn't return to New Orleans other than during World War II, sitting on the outskirts of the city on a troop train for a couple of hours, and not even able to get off of it.

Until, I guess it was around 1973, I was invited to address the National Association of Court Administrators, which was meeting in New Orleans. That was my first trip back. Since then I've made many trips back there. When the present mayor of New Orleans was running for election, he was calling, calling, calling, asking me to come back to do a little campaigning for him.

I just didn't see where I could be of much help to him, and then Judge [Allen E.] Broussard got into the act, and he began to call me. He was from Louisiana, not from New Orleans, but near there somewhere down there, and was a former law partner of mine.

Then I thought about it, and Dutch Morial is a very talented, very bright man, and I said, "If Dutch thinks I could help, maybe I can." So I went down for about three days. I guess it worked out pretty well for him, because he had arranged a press conference for me when I arrived; within an hour after I arrived a press conference, and each of the major newspapers turned out, and they had front page stories.

Either that night or the next night he put on a gala around me, and it was kind of, you know, "the return of the prodigal" sort of thing. [laughs] In any event, then of course he was elected, and I went back for his swearing-in. Since then, I've been back a number of times.

Morris

Did your uncle find a place for you to live and stay in close contact with you?

Wilson

Yes, he did. Matter of fact, I guess we moved in with him for--he didn't have any children, he and his wife. I think we moved into the same house. As I remember, it was one of these big old two-story Victorians. It was on the corner of 28th and Myrtle Street, where McClymonds High School is now.

We moved in there. We lived there not too long, and then moved over to a house on 30th, between Chestnut and Linden, where we rented for a couple of years. My father bought a little house around the corner from my uncle on Chestnut between 32nd and 30th, which was just around the corner.

My father was from the old school in the South. He started out as a carpenter's apprentice, and then later shifted into plastering, and he was a plasterer then. But he could do carpentering, and a little of this, and a little of that in the way of building, so he bought this house, and then just did it all over himself.

Morris

That's marvelous to have those kinds of skills.

Wilson

Yes, yes.

Morris

So you stayed close with your uncle, and were there other family members?

Wilson

It was just my uncle and his wife. Ponce Barrios and his wife were the only other family members here, and then the other five children were born in that house, I guess.

Morris

I see. So he was your mother's younger brother.

Wilson

My mother's brother. She had one brother.

Morris

And, as the elder son, were you the one that helped the younger brothers get along in school?

Wilson

I guess we were pretty much on our own, each one of us. Even from a little bit of a fellow, I was always wrapped up in sports, so when I wasn't in school I was on some kind of a playground or in some kind of a recreational facility. I guess when I was ten I had a paper route, but I whipped through that paper route to get back to the playground; or to the recreation center.

Morris

Did they have playground directors, and people like that?

Wilson

They had playground directors, yes. I went to Clawson School, which is on Poplar and 32nd--it's closed now; at that time it went from the kindergarten through the ninth grade. McClymonds High School is now where it was, which was just about two and a half blocks from where we lived.

During the summer, McClymonds opened the grounds as a playground. The coach, who later became the principal, Doc Hess--he just died about a month ago--he worked on the playground during the summer as a recreation director. He lived a couple of blocks from the school, too.

Morris

Was he a good coach?

Wilson

Oh, he was a great leader, he was a tremendous leader of children and young people. Little bit of a man, about five feet four at the most, but he was a strong character, and dynamic, and strong disciplinarian, but worked well with young people. He was a fearless little fellow.

Morris

Was there a mixture of children on the playground, blacks and whites? Any Asians at that time?

Wilson

Very few blacks. A mixture of Portuguese and Italians and Irish. Very, very few blacks. At that time--well, even by the time I reached high school, oh, maybe, 10, 15 percent of the school by then was made of black students. No more than that.

Morris

Were they mostly people like yourself who had grown up here as little kids?

Wilson

Yes.

Morris

So, did it mean that the teams were integrated, or was there any--

Wilson

The teams were integrated, yes. The athletic teams were integrated.

Morris

I came across a reference by D.G. Gibson to you as a newspaper boy. Did you know him that long ago?

Wilson

Oh, yes, yes. My first contact with D.G. Gibson was when, at the age of about twelve, I began to work in my uncle's barber shop after school, and on Saturdays, all day Saturday. He had a barber shop on 8th Street, between Broadway and Washington Street.

Morris

This is Ponce Barrios still?

Wilson

Ponce Barrios, yes, same one. He had a large barber shop, and I went to work in the barber shop shining shoes and keeping it clean. I did that through high school; junior high school and high school.

Morris

Was this where Mr. Gibson would come for--

Wilson

He was a customer. Then, also, D.G. Gibson was a distributor of cosmetics, and also a distributor of black newspapers from the East, in particular the Pittsburgh Courier, as I remember, and the Chicago Defender. My uncle would buy the papers from him and then give them to me, and let me take them out and sell them. So I developed a little following of a number of people--

On Sunday morning, I would take the papers around to Oakland, and out to Berkeley. I remember walking out there to take these papers.

Morris

That's quite a large territory to cover.

Wilson

Yes. [chuckles]

Morris

Did you read the papers? Or were you more interested in making the money?

Wilson

I was more interested in making the money out of the papers. I wasn't too interested in the papers at that time. I did read them casually.

Morris

Was Mr. Gibson already involved in political activities?

Wilson

Yes, he was already active. I believe he had come to California on the railroads. I think he had worked on the railroads when he initially came to California.

College Years

Morris

Was he one of the people that encouraged you to go to college? Was your family pushing you, your teachers?

Wilson

It was mainly, I guess, my uncle. My uncle was a strong believer in education. My father was like many of the Creoles out of Louisiana who felt that high school education was enough, and it was time to go to work. But my uncle believed strongly in it, and my mother did. They were the strong motivators that encouraged us to prepare to go to college and to go on to college.

Morris

Did you think about any place but the university at Berkeley?

Wilson

Oh, it was made clear to us that either we made the grades to get into UC Berkeley, or we weren't going to college. [laughs]

Morris

How did you feel about that? Were your friends, and the people you played basketball and baseball with--

Wilson

Most of them were not--no, they didn't have people motivating them, and I don't remember anyone in my class going directly into Cal but me. Some of them went to San Francisco State, and the state colleges, but I don't remember another one of my class that went directly into Cal.

Most of them didn't have that kind of drive and motivation, except there was a small group of friends, and we formed a little social club. Some of them, their parents were pushing them, but it was just a handful.

Morris

Was this a church-connected social group?

Wilson

No, it wasn't, it was just that our families had become friends in one way or another--some of them, in any event. We'd gotten to know each other through different social contacts.

Morris

Were these primarily other people who'd come from Louisiana, Creole background?

Wilson

No, they weren't. There were one or two who were, but not primarily.

Morris

Have you stayed in touch with them? Are some of these the people you went to school with?

Wilson

Some of them. Not many. Most of us were from poorer families. There was one whose father was a retired major from the army, and who'd done well; he'd served a number of years, he had organized the Phillipine Constabulary Band in World War I at the insistence of the president; Quezon, then I believe, was the president in the Phillipines, and Major Loving had organized the Phillipine Constabulary Band, and had built an estate over there, and had property over there, and a home, and whatnot.

He had one child, a son, who was a little younger than me, but he was part of our group, who ultimately went into the service himself and became a colonel, retired, and lives in Davis. I see him once in a while.

They were not from New Orleans, or Louisiana, but then there was another one, the Smith family, and my parents had known the Smiths in New Orleans. They were from New Orleans. There were three sons, the oldest one and I were about the same age, a couple of months apart.

He ultimately became a pharmacist, worked in Rumford's Pharmacy for a number of years in Berkeley.

Discrimination; Passing for White

Morris

I think of Louisiana as being the deep South, and that being where life was most difficult for blacks. Was it different in Louisiana, or was discrimination one of the reasons your family--

Wilson

It was the deep South, and yes, it was. Yes, it was, and, of course, the schools were all segregated in Louisiana. However, in some fields, in the building trades, for instance, it wasn't unionized, so--I don't know, you went through stages. You were "colored" when I was a kid coming up, and then you became "Negroes," and then "blacks" down the line.

But while there was far more discrimination and far more segregation in the South than here, there was an awful lot of it here. And even as late as the early forties, there was an awful lot of discrimination here. I remember when I got out of law school--I didn't go into law school until after I came out of the service in World War II. I graduated from Cal before I went into the service.

I guess I'd only been practicing law about two years, the early fifties, I remember being in this [mayor's] office with Byron Rumford, and there was someone else with us, arguing with the mayor, the city manager, and the fire chief, over the segregated fire department. There was one firehouse right across the street from this Clawson School, where I went to school. It was the only firehouse where Negroes could serve, which meant that whatever the number of firemen that it took to serve that one house, that was the maximum number of Negroes who could work in the Oakland Fire Department.

Morris

And that was primarily in a neighborhood which by then was mostly Negro families?

Wilson

Well, there were a number, yes. And you couldn't swim in any of the swimming pools, public or private, so we swam in the estuary. There were many places that wouldn't serve you here.

Morris

Really.

Wilson

That's right. '40, '41, '42, there was one Negro teacher in the whole of the East Bay.

Morris

And it took a long time.

Wilson

Ida Jackson, she's alive now, as far as I know.

Morris

Yes, I've talked to her for this project.2

Wilson

One teacher. There was one Negro teacher in the whole of the West Bay, Josephine Foreman, who taught in the parochial schools in San Francisco. There were no Negro teachers in the public schools of San Francisco.

Now, when I say there was one here, and there was one there, there may have been people who were passing for white, because as a result of the discrimination, you found many people who were fair-complected and passed for white to get jobs of one kind or another.

Morris

They continued the rest of their lives as white, or did some people move back and forth as the circumstances--

Wilson

Some of them moved back and forth, and some if them didn't. Some of them just lived out their lives as white. And, of course, there were some tragedies. I know a family who were originally out of Louisiana; they were already here when we arrived in Oakland, had been here a couple, two or three years.

One of them, the daughter--there were three children; the daughter was the youngest, and two sons. She's married to a man now, he's way up in age and he's crippled, and he's been crippled for some time. But he had lived as white, and had two children, and then somehow or other, his children were ten and twelve, something like that, and his wife found out, and then immediately broke and dissolved the marriage.

Morris

That's a pity. That really is.

Wilson

You're right. In terms of employment, opportunities were few and far between, except in some phases of the building trades; plastering was one of them. A few carpenters. Many of the other building trades, such as electrical and plumbing, had little or no opportunities for Negroes.

But in terms of working, I remember in the WPA days, I graduated, and I was working on EEP, Emergency Education Program, which was a professional project. I was at the North Oakland YMCA, which catered to Negroes primarily, and it was in a house, just in a big two-story house. They used to have classes preparing people to take civil-service exams.

The post office exam I took myself, and the first time I think I was fifty-two on the list or something like that. The way I found that they had passed me up was when I ran into someone who was lower on the list--120, 150, or two hundred--who had been working for about six months. And that was the way I learned that they had passed me up on the list.

Then one of my brothers--he's now a dentist--he had taken it, and he was 120 on the list. At that time the federal government didn't ask for race, but they asked for a picture. I was the darkest in the family. Well, when they looked at my brother, they thought he was white, so they offered him the job when they got down to him.

Then I took it again, and this time I was fifth out of thirty-five hundred, I just had a couple of people ahead of me who had veterans' preference. I was called in for an interview, if you want to call it that, this time. But it didn't really amount to anything other than to be told by the assistant superintendent of mails that, "The fact that you're called doesn't mean that you are going to get the job," as I well knew. And I didn't.

The probation department here, which, at that time, had no Negroes in it--I took that exam, and in that exam you were not called for an oral unless you passed the written. So when I was called in for the oral it meant that I'd passed the written, and about the only questions they asked me was, "You're Lionel Wilson, you graduated from the University of California, Berkeley?" "Yes, that's right." "Why'd you take the exam?" I told them. They said, "Fine. You'll hear from us in a couple of weeks." Well, I did, that I'd failed to pass the examination.

Morris

Oh, dear.

Wilson

So. [laughs]

University of California, Berkeley, 1932-1939, Sports and Studies

Morris

How about Cal itself? When did you enter as a freshman, about 1933, '34?

Wilson

Yes, 1932. At Cal itself, there was a great deal of discrimination also, and then some of the professional schools you simply couldn't get into unless, as in the case of Marvin Poston, who became an optometrist, who was able to get in through someone who his family, his mother or someone, got to know, who had some influence.

Morris

I think it was persistence, too.

Wilson

Yes.

Morris

Because when I talked with him, his recollection is that there was a faculty member who was determined that there not be a black graduate of the ophthalmology department.

Wilson

--he [Nibs Price] was one of the prime reasons Negroes couldn't play basketball in the Pacific Coast Conference. I think it was broken open in the Northern Division first, and then in the Southern, even though--and here again, I remember a fellow came up to Cal--I don't remember if I had graduated or was a senior when he came to Cal from Los Angeles--who did play for Nibs Price, played basketball, but Nibs didn't know he was black.

He was blond, blue-eyed. I knew him from Los Angeles, because I had dated his older sister in Los Angeles. They lived in Los Angeles. I think, finally, before Nibs retired, I think there was a known black he permitted to play, but that was under the influence of the football coach at the time, who was very fond of this fellow, and he played on the football team. And they prevailed upon Nibs Price to let him play on the basketball team. That was Tom Tryon, who was in the Oakland school department. He was already on the football team.

Morris

Wasn't Walter Gordon already a coach?

Wilson

Football.

Morris

He played football?

Wilson

He may have done some coaching, but not basketball. He played football. There had been a few who played football. Walter Gordon had played football, and I remember someone named Francis, Smoke Francis, who had played football. There was one here and there.

Morris

But a big, husky, young black student who wanted to play football couldn't just go out and sign up?

Wilson

Oh, no. Well, if you played football, some of them could play on the football teams. Because I remember a very close friend of mine who was a couple of years behind me, two or three years behind me, but who was a great athlete, truly a great athlete.

If he'd come along later, he'd have been a star major league baseball player. He could play anything, and was outstanding. Clint Evans was the baseball coach, and Clint wanted him on the baseball team, and they wanted him on the football team. But they had told him that if he came to Cal, he couldn't play basketball, and there wasn't anyone on the basketball team who could carry his shoes, in terms of being as good--

Morris

Athletic ability.

Wilson

Athletic ability as a basketball player. But he had been told that he couldn't play because Nibs Price wouldn't allow him to play on the basketball team.

Morris

Were there enough black students around to question that and to take--

Wilson

No. There weren't more than a handful. There were several women when I enrolled at Cal, several women, and maybe a handful of men.

Morris

Did you get a recommendation from one of the counselors in the high school, or did you just fill out the application and send it in, for enrolling at Cal?

Wilson

I just filled in the application and sent it in.

Morris

And how come you decided on economics?

Wilson

I started out--as a matter of fact, when I was in my last year in high school, my family suddenly wondered what I was going to do next. I'd just change the subject. So they cornered me one day and said, "What are you going to do after graduation?" I said, "I'm going to study law. I'm going to be a lawyer."

By then the Depression had set in, and they looked around and said, "If all you're going to be is another starving lawyer, boy, you had better go to work." Well, that was a fiction, because there weren't any jobs, anyway.

Morris

Lawyers or anything else, yes.

Wilson

So I said, "Wait a minute, I'm going to college." They said, well, what am I going to study? They decided I was going to be a dentist, so I entered in pre-dental, and I never would have made a dentist. I never liked to work with my hands unless it was a baseball bat, [Morris laughs] or a tennis racquet, or a football, or a basketball. But I never liked working with my hands. First, I never liked the sciences, the life sciences.

It took about a year and a half before I realized that my family didn't know what I was doing there, and so I changed my major, but I didn't have the nerve to change it to pre-law, Those were the days when you obeyed your parents more, so I thought about math, which I did well in, and languages, and I decided I'd go into languages.

So I switched over to a major in Spanish, and a minor in French until--

Morris

Good for you.

Wilson

After the first semester of my junior year, and then all of a sudden I asked myself, "What am I going to do with this? You can't teach."

Morris

Did you have any thought of maybe going into business in South America, or Central America?

Wilson

No, I didn't, I thought about it, and I thought about interpreting or something like that. Then I realized it wasn't realistic, so at that point I switched over to economics, with a minor in political science, and that's how I graduated.

Morris

In view of your later life, it sounds like you ended up in the right place.

Wilson

Yes.

Morris

Were there some faculty members that you particularly liked or that were particularly helpful?

Wilson

By the time I graduated, yes. There was one particular, Doctor Gulick, Charles Gulick. Then I also took a graduate course in agricultural labor from Paul Taylor.

Morris

Was he already studying problems of migrant labor?

Wilson

Yes, he was. Yes, he was.

Morris

Did that make a real impression on you?

Wilson

I don't recall particularly that it did. But I do remember taking a graduate course in personnel administration with Dr. Gulick, and he was an up-front person. And he called me aside, he told me, he said, "Look, I can place everybody in this seminar, but I won't be able to place you." Because, you know.

Morris

Oh dear, yes.

Wilson

I appreciated his forthrightness, and I was satisfied it wasn't something he wanted. I think he was very fair with me, I felt.

Morris

Were you at that point enrolled as a graduate student, or were you able to take graduate courses?

Wilson

Yes, yes. I had graduated.

Morris

And then you continued to take courses.

Wilson

Yes, correct.

Morris

Let's see, that was 1937, the war hadn't yet appeared--

Wilson

No, I stayed out of school, you see. What happened is, when I thought I was going to be graduating, and about a month before graduating, I was notified that I was short three units in my major. Because I'd made the change, you see, and I was late.

So I was told that I could file a special petition to graduate, and I did, and then about a week before graduation I received a negative response, that I couldn't graduate without those three units. So I was pretty disgusted, and I dropped out of school, and I stayed out a year and a half.

Morris

I can see why.

Wilson

And then came back. My family didn't think I'd ever go back, but after a year and a half, I went back, and graduated. It wound up I only needed one semester to pick up three units, and I took some other courses. And it was in '38, December '38, that I finished up and was in the graduating class of '39, then.

Brothers and World War II

Morris

Your younger brothers, by then, were they at the university, too?

Wilson

My brother Kermit was at the university. It was when he arrived at the university, that's when I got the nerve to switch.

Morris

He's the one that went into dentistry?

Wilson

Yes, that's right. And it was good, because he had always liked to work with his hands, and had been good working with his hands. So it was natural for him, as it turned out.

Morris

And it was good for your parents, too. They got their ambition fulfilled. [Wilson chuckles] One of the boys went into dentistry.

Wilson

Yes.

Morris

I was wondering if having a brother who was still at Cal, maybe helped you make up your mind to go back and finish up?

Wilson

That might have been. Then I had another brother, Barry--I guess, yes, he was at Cal by the time I graduated. Because I took a semester of graduate work, and then I stayed out another semester, and then I went back. Because I remember I took an upper division course with him.

Morris

With your brother.

Wilson

The younger brother, not the one in pre-dental, but a younger brother who is the only one in the eight of them in the family who is not alive. I was the oldest of eight children, six boys and two girls. He was the navigator on a B-17 lost in World War II, over Europe. But therein lies a story also, because there were no Negro navigators in World War II, but when he decided that he wanted to fly--at first he didn't, because my mother didn't want him to.

He had become interested in flying on a Thanksgiving day; a fellow was at our home who was my doubles partner in tennis at the time, and was one of the first blacks into the civil aeronautics program that they had.

Morris

At Cal?

Wilson

No.

Morris

In the Civil Aeronautics Corps.

Wilson

Yes, it was Civil Aeronautics Administration, or something. So he said, "Let's go out to the airport, and I'll take you up." We got out there, and it was too windy, they were flying Piper Cubs, the students, and we couldn't go up. But from that day, Barry wanted to fly.

So when he was going to be drafted--he was going to become a dentist also. This is what he wanted, and he had graduated from Cal by then, in pre-dental, but he didn't have the money to go on. This same uncle who had helped my brother Kermit into dental school wanted to help him, that's Ponce Barrios, but Barry was very independent, said, no, he wanted to save his own money. So he went to work as a laborer at Mare Island.

Then when he was going to be drafted, he told my mother, "Look, I'm going in the army, I'm not going to fly," and she said, "All right." So the air corps had boards which were traveling around the country and they would sit on different college campuses. He found that the board was going to be meeting at Stanford, so he applied and went up before the board.

An old air corps major, who was the chairman of the board, called him aside, and said, "Look, son, I see from your college papers you're a Negro." He said, "Forget that, you're an American." He said, "If you go in as a Negro, you're going to get inferior equipment, and inferior training, and that's a lot of nonsense anyway."

He convinced Barry, so Barry went in. They said, "You're an American," and let it go at that.

Morris

He just filled out a new set of papers?

Wilson

That's right. [Morris laughs] Barry looked very much like my father, who was very fair, and had kind of grayish blue eyes, and that's how he wound up a navigator.

Morris

Oh, my goodness. There was a black air corps unit, though.

Wilson

Oh, yes. This same fellow, my doubles partner, he was one of the original 99th Fighter Squadron. They were the first blacks admitted in the air corps. It was a segregated unit, of course, all of our forces were segregated, you see.

Ed Toppins and--

Morris

Is that your tennis partner?

Wilson

My doubles partner, Edward Toppins. So he became an original member of the 99th Fighter Squadron.

Morris

He'd already had flying experience with the CAA.

Wilson

He'd had some, yes, with the Civil Aeronautic Authority.

Morris

Boy, those were really remarkable days. You people were finding all kinds of ways of doing things you wanted to do.

Wilson

Yes, yes, yes, that's right. The brother who was a dentist went through the service, he went into the service, he just signed up. No one said anything to him, and when he graduated from Cal dental school he was given thirty days to enlist or be drafted. Well, obviously, he enlisted, because he was commissioned.

Morris

He would go in as an officer, with his dental training.

Wilson

That's right. They sent him into training down near Bakersfield. Negro units kept going through, and he thought he was going to be assigned to one at any time, and he never was. The next thing he knew, he was shipped to England to a dental clinic for a heavy bomb group a couple of hours out of London. He finally realized that they had enrolled him as white. So he went through the war as white.

Morris

That's a hard decision, then, when it comes to going back to civilian life. What do you do?

Wilson

That's right. They drafted me, I went kicking and screaming. [laughter] I was at Monterey, and I had been there a couple of days, and I had a question on my mind about insurance. I went to the headquarters to ask about it. This corporal brought my service record out, and it was a little booklet about that size, and white.

When he brought it out and put it on the desk, and I looked at it, on the cover there was a circle about three quarters of an inch in diameter, stamped in blue, with a "w" inside of it. I waited until he had answered the question I wanted. I suspected what it was, so then I asked him. "By the way," I said, "I saw the stamp on my service record with a `w' inside it. What does that mean?" He said, "That's nothing, you don't have to worry about that, that just means you're white."

I laughed, I said, "Somebody's made a mistake. I'm not white, I'm Negro." The poor guy was embarrassed. He scratched it out, reached under the table counter, and came up with another stamp, which had a "c" in the middle of it, for colored.

Morris

So those service records didn't carry photographs.

Wilson

No, no. I'm going to have to put this over to another time.

Morris

I understand, thank you for taking this much time.

Re-election Campaign of 1985

---

---

Wilson

--and actually worked part time, and campaigned. I just haven't had time to campaign, very little. I've made appearances but I mean, to actually spend time and go out into the community other than formal appearances, I just haven't been able to do it, because there are so many things that keep coming up.

Also, unfortunately, so many of them I have to handle myself.

Morris

Yes, that's hard. Are there more kinds of things coming up now than usual because it's an election year?

Wilson

I don't think so. I don't think so. No, I don't think so. And of course, a part, too, is that we just started with the campaign just very recently, recent weeks, and [Oakland City Councilman] Wilson Riles [Jr.] has been campaigning for sixteen months. I have this first letter he sent out sixteen months ago; he has nothing to do but campaign because he works part time; he has a job with [Alameda County Supervisor] John George.

John has no program, because he's never been able to get any support at the board level, up until very recently. Now, with the changing make-up of the board of supervisors, he may be able to get a little more, but before that, John had nothing. So, Riles had nothing but time to--

Morris

Do the community contact thing.

Wilson

That's right. There was a flap about it, but somehow or another, John managed to get some money out to him to buy a computer. And they just crank this stuff out, and he's been out there for at least sixteen months.

And, as I just told one of my sons, who had called, he was laughing and kidding me about the campaign, and I said, "You know, if I weren't going to put on a good campaign, I wouldn't have gotten into it. You know, I would have just not run. But once I decided, and it wasn't an easy decision, but once I decided to run, then I'm going to put on a good campaign."

Morris

You've certainly had a lot of experience in Alameda County politics, to know what it takes to put on a good campaign.

Wilson

Yes, yes.

2. II Becoming a Lawyer

Morris

That's where I thought we might pick up with this interview for The Bancroft Library. We got you into the army, and then I wondered at what point you decided to go to law school, and if that decision was related to an interest in political matters?

Wilson

Actually, I'd always wanted to be a lawyer, but when I started at Cal, I was just turning seventeen. Those were the days when young people more or less did what their parents wanted them, in terms of direction. When my parents--actually it was my mother most, and my uncle Ponce Barrrios--but anyway, they got together, and said, "Hey, by the way, what are you going to be?" [laughs] I said, "Well, a lawyer." "A lawyer?! Another starving lawyer?" (The Depression had hit by then, and there weren't a handful of black lawyers here, and those that were here were doing nothing.)

I said, "That's all you're thinking about, that I ought to find a job." That was really--the idea of finding a job, where? There weren't any jobs, and what few jobs there were, they weren't for blacks, except maybe for waiting tables, running on the road. A handful managed to get into the post office--not even a handful--three or four who had contacts, one whose father had been a plastering contractor, and one or two others.

But there wasn't one black in Alameda County Probation, for instance. I think the city had one, a mail clerk. Even the federal government, the post office, was discriminating against blacks.

So the answer to going to work is, "Work where?" So I said, "No, I'm going to college." What am I going to be? So they decided, looked around, that there were a couple of dentists who were scratching out a fair living, and so they said that I was going to become a dentist.

Sure, if I had applied myself, I could have gone through school, but I would have been a terrible dentist and I'd have been a very unhappy dentist, and an unhappy person, because I've never liked to work with my hands.

There's even a standing joke today, about how when I was a kid I made my first canteen in the fifth grade, and it leaked, you know? [laughs] But I started out in pre-dental, and it almost meant that I got dumped out of school, because I had no interest, and I didn't go to classes, and I perfected my basketball, on a daily basis, in the gym.

Morris

Yes, I think a lot of young men feel that way.

Wilson

So then after about a year and a half, two things happened. One, I realized that my family, their education was limited, too, and they really didn't know what was going on out there, and what I was doing. Two, the brother next to me was making it into college, and he was a natural for dentistry, so I let the family know I was making a switch.

He then became the dental student in the family. It was perfect for him. Even in dental school, I remember when he got into working with gold in that stage of the training, that after doing everything he had to do, then he would sit up half the night, just working with gold, making jewelry. He loved to work with his hands, and he became a very fine dentist.

With me, where do you go from there? I still didn't have the nerve to go into pre-law against the wishes of my parents.

Morris

Did you do that after your military service?

Wilson

Yes, I went into law school after I came out of the service. But what I did was I looked around, and I always did well in math, and I did well in languages, so I switched over as a language major.

So I was a language major until I completed the first semester of my junior year, then all of a sudden it dawned on me, "How are you going to use this?"

There was nothing in education, there was no future in teaching. At that point, I thought about becoming an interpreter. When I looked into that, I found that the jobs were very limited in that field. So I changed over and I majored in economics and minored in political science, and graduated with that background.

I probably would have gone right into the law then, but by that time the war had broken out, and it was too late. I knew I was going to be drafted, I was 1-A in the draft for a long time. I was one of the few who got deferred--I was working over at the Alameda Naval Air Station as a laborer, and I received two "Greetings."3

The first time I went to the draft board, I might not have gone, because the naval air station tried to keep me over there. I got to know one of the chief administrators, when I was cleaning his office in the morning, and we began to talk. I had written a couple of seminar papers in a field that he was interested in, so we got to know each other.

Then he had me pulled out of the public works department over into the aircraft repair and maintenance division. If I hadn't been in such a tough draft board, I would have been deferred, but I wasn't. But the first time, as I said, I got "Greetings," and I took them down, sang a sad song, [chuckles] and this lady, who had the reputation of being so tough, tore them up.

So then this lasted another year, and then she called me and said, "Son, I've kept you out as long as I can, you've got to go now!" I said, "Thank you, I appreciate it," and off I went in the service. That's why I didn't get into law school after I had graduated, and took some graduate work for a year.

I took one semester, and then I stayed out a semester, and had a little job, and then I went back for a semester. So it was after I came out of the service that I entered law school.

Hastings Law School, 1947-1950

Morris

Were there other people that you had been friends with growing up who were in that Hastings class with you? Were you the only black guy from Oakland?

Wilson

In that Hastings class?

Morris

Yes.

Wilson

None with whom I'd grown up. There were thirteen blacks in that class, that started out in that class. There was one, whose name was Wilson, also, whose family was also from Louisiana, and people frequently got our families mixed up. Especially when one of his brothers was a dentist, and another brother was a doctor, and then my brother had become a dentist by then.

He was in that class, but he was still working in the post office. He tried to get a leave, and they turned him down, although he'd been in the post office for some time. He wasn't able to get a leave, and he just dropped out of school. But he was the only one.

There was another fellow who had moved into Oakland after the war, and had lived around the corner from me in Oakland, and that was Terry Francois, who later became one of the first black supervisors in San Francisco. Not the first black, I think there was one before him. But anyway, Terry and I became very close.

But Terry didn't start with us, he wasn't one of the thirteen. Terry was a year ahead, but then, after his first year, he went back East to get married, and the woman jilted him. He was so upset about it, he didn't return, and stayed out a year. So when I was entering the second year, he was coming back for the second year, instead of going into the third year. But he lived in Oakland and he was the only one that I knew quite well. The others were more or less strangers. Most of them had just arrived here after the war.

Morris

They were newcomers to California.

Wilson

Newcomers to California. As I say, there were thirteen. Of the thirteen, two of us graduated. Joe Kennedy, who became a superior court judge over there, and myself. Terry graduated with us, but he was not one of the original thirteen who started.

Studying and Working

Morris

Did you study together?

Wilson

We studied together, yes, we did. Terry and Joe and I studied together.

Morris

Was there anybody in particular on the faculty that you found was helpful to you?

Wilson

No.

Morris

It was sink or swim in law school?

Wilson

It was sink or swim. And my situation was a little different than even Terry or Joe. Joe's wife--he was married, had no children, and his wife worked, and Terry's wife worked. I had a non-working wife and three children to support. So I was working three part-time jobs.

At that time, Hastings was set up in a way that made it possible to work, because the classes, on a daily basis, started at eight, nine, ten, eleven. So your afternoons were all free. So I worked three part-time jobs. I worked in the YMCA in Oakland part-time, I worked for the city; a recreation director part-time. I worked as a janitor for my brother in his dental office part-time.

So there wasn't much time for--[laughs]

Morris

Boy, that must have really been tough. Where did you find time to do studying?

Wilson

Mostly at night, except that on the playground job, I had spent my life on playgrounds, and working in the Y, and worked with a lot of the younger people. So I was good with kids, I got along very well with them, and I'd study on the playground.

I remember one day, over at Hoover Junior High, I was outside, where I could see the whole playground area, and leaning up against the wall with my law book. Supervisor came along, started to give me the devil. I said, "Wait a minute," I said, "What's my purpose here? Isn't my purpose to provide program activities and keep these youngsters busy with programs?" "Yes, that's right."

"Look around you. You see any kinds standing around with nothing to do?" "No," he said. I said, "Okay, then get off my back. [laughs] Anytime you come around, you find me sitting here, and the kids are doing nothing, and I'm just sitting here studying, I think you have a basis to challenge me. But other than that--." So that ended that.

Passing the Bar Exam

Morris

How about the bar exam? That's reported to be one of the toughest parts of getting to be a lawyer.

Wilson

Less than 50 percent pass, and most of them were taking a course called--a great legal writer, probably the greatest legal writer in the history of this state: Witkin. Bernie Witkin. Nearly everybody took Bernie Witkin's course, but there was a black lawyer who had quite a reputation as a teacher.

He would take the people with limited backgrounds. He had taken them, and taken them on through right from the beginning, and taught them law, and got them by the bar. So Terry and Joe and I took his course, along with--

Morris

What was his name?

Wilson

I was just about to tell you his name, and then when you asked me, it slipped my mind.

Morris

Sorry.

Wilson

Bussey. John Bussey. He wasn't much of a practicing lawyer, but he was a brilliant scholar and a fine teacher. Actually, John was the first black judge in northern California. [Governor] Goodie Knight appointed him to the municipal bench in San Francisco. By that time, John was just teaching and doing appellate court.

So we took his course. He was a very fine man to get along with. But he and I used to argue all the time, because I tried to convince him that he ought to change his approach. He did too much lecturing, and I felt that there was an imbalance in the amount of time that he was spending with us in interchanges and answering questions as compared with the lecturing he was doing.

I just argued that we ought to know the law, we're just out of law school. We all went to full-time schools, and we ought to know more about law now than we'll ever know in our lives, but the important thing is, how do we put it together in a bar exam? And how do we answer these questions?

He took it good-naturedly, and he later substantially cut his lecturing down and placed a greater emphasis on the discussion of questions. But he was good. We all passed.

Morris

Great. On your first time?

Wilson

We all passed the first time, yes. My biggest problem in terms of the bar, and I knew it was going to be, was that I would see too much in the questions and I didn't space myself adequately. As you may know now, it's a different bar exam now because it's part essay, and it's part objective, and it has been for about six, seven years.

But at that time, it was all essay. It was three days, with three questions in the morning, three in the afternoon. You were supposed to allocate fifty-two minutes per question. For three days that means that there were six entire sessions. You know, one in the morning, one in the afternoon.

In those six entire sessions, there was always at least one question where I had less than half an hour to read the question, analyze it, and write on it. John Bussey advocated a half an hour of analysis of each question, before you started writing. He hit hard on that. But, inevitably, on the first two questions I would have put too much time in writing, and then I wouldn't have much time for the last one.

One question, I remember, I had fifteen minutes to read it, analyze it, pick the issues out, and write on it. But my strongest facility through law school was the ability to read or listen to a set of facts and get to the issues quickly. That probably was the very strongest part of what helped me; that made it possible for me, I think, to get through law school and to pass the bar exam.

If I didn't have that, I don't think I would have made it. Because I didn't have the time to do all the reading that the others were doing on the outside and this sort of thing.

Establishing a Law Practice

Morris

So how did you use those skills? Did you go find a law office to practice with once you got your degree?

Wilson

When I got out of law school, there was a lawyer, the senior black lawyer in the area, named George Vaughns, who knew me from the YMCA. I came up through the northwest [Oakland] branch, which was then called the Negro branch. He had been on the board for many years, and I came up as a child through it and then ultimately as a volunteer.

I started coaching and playing with its senior men's basketball team at the age of eighteen. So he had known me, and he offered a job in his office. I actually went to work before the results of the bar came up. I went to work on the first of November of '49, in his law office.

I didn't stay there long, though, I was there from the first of November for maybe about fifteen months, and then I left and opened my own office.

Morris

Did you? Business must have been pretty good.

Wilson

Not really. No, not really. But I just wasn't satisfied with the arrangement there, and what was happening. I wanted to strike out on my own and did so. So I opened an office over in what was the south Berkeley--it's probably not open now--the south Berkeley branch building of the Wells Fargo Bank on the corner of Alcatraz and Adeline.

The manager of the bank had a twin brother, identical twin, who was a practicing lawyer in Oakland. They didn't want to let me in to begin with. They didn't want to rent the property upstairs to begin with, and they didn't want Negroes in there, anyway, but he went to bat, and he got me in, at a reduced rate.

I stayed there about two years, and then I moved right across the street. There was a pharmacy there--it's gone down now, but they still do some type of pharmaceutical work--on the southwest corner. Right behind it, on Alcatraz; there was a doctor's office downstairs, Dr. Joel Lewis. I took office space upstairs.

3. III Working for Change

East Bay Democratic Club; Career Options

Morris

My chronology says you passed the bar exam in 1950, and then in 1953, you were running--

Wilson

The results came out in '50, yes. Actually, the results came out in December, but the swearing-in was the first week of January, of '50.

Morris

And then in April of '53, you were running for the Berkeley City Council. That's pretty fast movement into the city political scene.

Wilson

Well, I suppose so, but I was very well-known. Number one, I had played baseball for years at San Pablo Park, in Berkeley--even though I had lived in Oakland, San Pablo Park was the mecca, pretty much, for blacks in baseball. They'd had a league there on Sundays for years, so I was very well known, because of baseball.

Then our basketball team, that I had been coaching since I was eighteen, I was still doing it then. I didn't retire from competitive basketball (and it was with this same team, coaching and playing with it, the Northwest Y's Men's Team) until I was forty-four.

Morris

That's marvelous. That takes a lot of time and a lot of energy. Yes. So you attribute your political base to your athletic activities?

Wilson

That's right. Then, of course, for three years, I'd been very active with the NAACP, and we were fighting battles around with the first case, Johnson vs. Pasadena. It was a schools case. I'd already become active, with some others--Clint White, and Charley Wilson, who went to the FEPC [Fair Employment Practices Commission] as a general counsel.

As soon as I started practicing, I jumped right into community activities of that type. Then, of course, there was one Democratic club, and I joined it even before I started practicing--that was the East Bay Democratic Club. That was a club that the late D. G. Gibson was a leader of. It was built around Byron Rumford and D. G. Gibson.

Morris

Had that started as the Appomattox Club? I came across a newspaper clipping that said the East Bay Democratic Club was formed, and that it was a new organization. But I think it was Byron Rumford who told us about something that he called the Appomattox Club.

Wilson

No, the East Bay Democratic Club had been formed for some years, but it had been dormant. I suppose I played a major role in reorganizing it, and bringing out a lot of new, young people at the time.

Evelio Grillo played a major role in our organization. Evelio was primarily responsible for several black Republicans who changed their registration and became active.

Morris

As Democrats.

Wilson

As Democrats. Clint White, and Don McCullum, and Charles Furlough. Allen Broussard was not one of those, although he was a Democrat, and there was a realtor named McKey, who actually came out here and had a franchise selling a major vacuum cleaner, and then left and went into real estate, and became an inheritance tax appraiser down the line.

So we had some really top people, outstanding people, in the organization, and it built fast, and rapidly, and with being backed by Byron and--

Morris

Was he [Tom Berkley] part of the Democratic Club?

Wilson

No, he wasn't. Tom wasn't part of the club, Tom was pretty much for going it independently; he was a Democrat, but he was going it pretty much independently. He was one of the first to run for Oakland City Council. As a matter of fact, Tom Berkley had sort of a little unique role on his own.

In those days, he and Byron didn't hit it off. It was a long time before they finally got together. When I was in my senior year in law school--in the junior year, Terry Francois and Joe Kennedy both went to work for Tom in his law office as research assistants. He offered me a job but I couldn't afford it; what he was paying, I couldn't afford to give up my three part-time jobs to do that work. So otherwise, my career might have been entirely different, because I would have joined with the others in working there with Tom Berkley. But I didn't.

As a matter of fact, when I was deciding to enter law school, when I came out of the service and looked around, I went back to the naval air station, from where I was drafted. At that time I was working in the wing shop, where the repair work on wings was done. I had been pulled into a training program. They had a trainee program, where you could go from shop to shop until you learn all the facets of the business and then become a journeyman aviation metalsmith.

The man who was over that wing shop when I arrived, that was my second shop after I was put in the training program, and I never got out of it, because the head civilian came to me and said, "Look." He was named George Smith, and he was trying to develop an assembly-line approach to the repair work.

When he found out that I had graduated in economics and I knew something about time and motion studies, they didn't want me to leave. They promised me that I would get my journeyman rate without ever going into any of the other shops. I would have, if I hadn't been drafted.

By the time I returned, George Smith was a master mechanic, which was the top level for civilian employees by that time at the naval air station. He offered me a desk in his office, and I thought about it. Then I thought about going back and getting a teaching credential, and thought about the law, which had always been my first love.

I was working at the Y with Josh Rose. I was his full-time associate secretary--combination of physical director and program director. As a matter of fact, I had come close to going into a career, just before I went into the service, in Y work.

I was working under the EEP, the Emergency Education Program, that was a professional program related to the WPA, but assigned to the Y. So actually I was working as a Y secretary right there although I was being paid by the federal government, such as it was.

They were opening a new branch in San Diego. Josh Rose urged me to apply; he was the Y secretary and later the first black councilmember here in Oakland. Josh urged me to apply, and I did. I was offered the job in a twelve-page letter that mentioned the salary on the twelfth page. [laughs] I looked at that, and I said, "No, no way." Otherwise, I'd have gone out into YMCA work.

Concerns for Social Justice

Morris

It sounds like you had some feelings about social justice and that it was time that something happened in the black community. Were those some of your concerns?

Wilson

Yes, yes.

Morris

By the time you got through law school?

Wilson

Yes. You have to remember, I was raised in a city in California where everything was supposed to be beautiful for--and my family having moved here to find a better place to raise their children, where they would have better opportunities, and yet where there were many places that wouldn't serve you food. The only hotels you could stay in were if you could find one that was run by a Japanese. Nowhere to swim except in the estuary or ocean. Little or no opportunity in terms of future unless you were going to become a doctor, lawyer, you know, professional.

And coming up in that kind of atmosphere, and if you'll permit me a moment of immodesty, having been blessed by God with better than average intellect, school came very easy for me throughout, and I was at the top of the classes. [laughs] I was amazed; I spoke at the Naval Supply Center at an annual luncheon of federal managers, a couple hundred people, last week. The person who introduced me I couldn't imagine where he had gotten this--began to talk about my background, "raised and educated in the Oakland public schools and in the ninth grade won a citywide contest with an essay on the flag."

My God, I hadn't heard anything like that in so long! Afterwards, I asked him. He had run into, somehow or other, an old friend of mine, someone who had known me from way back. But anyway, what I'm saying is that obviously I didn't even realize it myself, the impact that all this was having on me until later years. Actually until I became a lawyer.

Morris

Dealing with white lawyers in the courts and in the various cases you found you were as competent as they were?

Wilson

I found--when I got out to Cal, for instance, I came from a school that was noted as--McClymonds was known as a shop school. But for me Cal was easy, I didn't have any problems competing with the kids from any of the schools out there, as long as I did a little work.

But what I mean is that I didn't realize the impact that these experiences, the discriminatory practices and segregation and so forth, had had on me until after I had, in later years, begun to reflect on why I had such a tremendous drive to work in the community and work with the NAACP.

NAACP Legal Redress Committee

Wilson

I was chairman of the Alameda County [branch of the NAACP]--when I came out of school. I became chairman almost immediately of the Legal Redress Committee, and then they broke it up as three branches; Oakland, Alameda, and Berkeley. I became chairman of the Legal Redress Committee for the Oakland branch.

I think in my law practice I ran a legal aid office for people who couldn't afford services. Then I realized--I guess it was the impact from what I had experienced throughout the years. I suppose that the culmination of it, in one sense, was my role as chairman of the Legal Redress Committee, and walking into this very same office with this very same desk sitting there, meeting with the mayor and the city manager and the fire chief, to try and convince them that they ought to eliminate the segregated fire department.

Because there was, as you know from talking to others, there was one house only in which blacks could work, down on Magnolia and 34th, right across from Clawson School. Which, one, limited the number you could have in the department, because you could only have the number of blacks it took to complement the house. Two, in terms of any promotions, it was limited for the same reasons.

So we sit in here. I don't remember who was with me, Byron may have been there, I don't know. We put up our arguments, and they sit there. An interesting thing about it is that the mayor blacks out; I never even remember who that mayor was. But the city manager I remember, was Jack Hassler and the fire chief, Lloyd Burke.

When we finished, the fire chief was the only one who responded. He spoke up and said, "If I were in your place, I would be saying the same things you're saying. And it would make sense. But as long as I'm fire chief, there will be no integrated fire department in this city."

Morris

How could he see your point of view and still refuse to make some changes?

Wilson

Because he felt that there was a place for blacks, and that was it, and it was not in an integrated society.

Morris

Was the black firehouse supposed to only deal with a fire in a black business, or a home owned by a black person?

Wilson

No.

Morris

They were firefighting in the whole city?

Wilson

That's right. This was in the fifties. A couple of years later, the council passed an ordinance that abolished the black-only fire house staffing.

Morris

Were the other young men that you were acquainted with feeling the same kind of urgency, that it was time to change things?

Wilson

They were. The people I've mentioned, Clint White and Don McCullum, yes, and Evelio Grillo, yes; they were all feeling the same thing.

Campaigns for Berkeley City Council, 1953 and 1955; More on Oakland 1985 Campaign

Morris

Then in 1953, you ran for a seat on the Berkeley City Council. Was the situation in the Berkeley political scene such that you thought there was a real possibility of winning that city council race?

Wilson

Well, I don't remember how I got into that and [laughs] who euchred me into running that race. I suppose it was suggested that, "This will help to develop your law practice in some way by more exposure as a lawyer," or something. I suppose there might have been an element of thinking to win, because in '55, I think it was '55, on a budget with six hundred dollars, I only missed election by maybe around seven hundred votes.

Morris

That's pretty good. There was a piece in the Tribune, on the 20th of February, 1953, which said that the South Berkeley Community Church held a mass meeting to foster your campaign, and that the Reverend John Mickle, who was the pastor, was the temporary chair. Had he been somebody who was really urging you to run?

Wilson

Yes, he was urging a black candidate--I guess we were Negroes then. I remember first we were colored, and then we were Negroes, and then somehow or other we became known as blacks. That's been an evolutionary process, as you know. At that period we were, I guess, Negroes. And he was one of those urging that there ought to be a Negro on the council.

Of course, even today, the election results are close; although obviously the situation has changed substantially in terms of electability, but mainly because the moderates and the conservatives gave up a long time ago, and the moderates haven't any leadership. I guess the last was Warren Widener,4 and then, as you know, I think that it was generally recognized that Warren never would have lost that race if he'd had any kind of a campaign, but it was just taken for granted that he would win.

Gus Newport was new, nobody knew him, and it was "Gus Who?"5 It was kind of a joke, "Gus Who?" but Gus Who was backed by the--

Morris

Berkeley Citizens Action, which grew out of the April coalition.

Wilson

BCA, and they were well organized and pushed him in. Even that race, as you may recall, was seven- or eight-hundred votes difference, and Warren Widener had no campaign in south Berkeley where his real strength was. He didn't have any campaign.

Morris

Is that the danger of incumbency?

Wilson

Yes. I've just been saying now we're working hard at putting on a campaign and putting on a strong campaign, but it's getting more and more difficult to convince people that I've got a problem. Becuase I'm hearing it from too many places, "Oh, he can't beat you." Riles is seen as the toughest candidate, and people say, "He can't beat you."

Even though I believe that myself, that's no way to run a campaign. And I'm not running that kind of campaign. What bothers me most is that I could see--there's a fellow out there named Hector Reyna who's run for everything for--

Morris

Fifteen years or so.

Wilson

Yes. I don't know, he's been out maybe eighteen of twenty times, and he's developing more and more name recognition. He got ten thousand votes when he ran at large against John Sutter a few years ago. Recently, Reyna ran for two offices; he probably only got away with it because no one challenged him legally, and he got sixty thousand votes in the Peralta Community College district. Granted, that's no big, broad district, and he lost 21,000 to 60,000; but my point is that, having been in office for eight years, you make a lot of decisions.

Every time you make a decision you win a friend and you lose one; you win and you lose. So that there's an opportunity for a certain amount of protest votes going to somebody like Hector. I would hate to have to get into a run-off.

Morris

Because that's just enough to splinter the rest of the votes.

Wilson

That's just enough to splinter it, and my people don't see it, but there is a potential--there are six other candidates besides Hector, I think, and they won't get much of anything but a few hundred here and a few hundred there, and if Hector got a fair piece of it, there might be enough for a run-off.

My concern is I just don't want to have to campaign for another month. Raise more money and this sort of thing.

Morris

Do it all twice.

Wilson

But it is a danger, and I'm hearing it in too many places.

Morris

All you have to do is remind your people to look at Berkeley.

Wilson

That's right. Yes.

More About Berkeley Campaigns

Morris

There was a man named Ura Harvey, who ran for the school board in '53. When you were running for the council.

Wilson

I remember, the storekeeper from south Berkeley.

Morris

Had he been part of your group of young activists?

Wilson

No, no. He was a little older than us, and he was somewhat interested in the community, but hadn't really been politically active. A very nice man.

Morris

There had been a couple of things that related probably more to the school campaign than to yours, but I had forgotten about them in this period of time. There was another candidate, named David Smith. Part of the opposition to him was that he was accused of having allowed Paul Robeson to sing in one of the Berkeley public schools. Had that been something that was going on, then, in the fifties, that there was a problem with a black person as distinguished as Paul Robeson?

Wilson

Yes, I think there was. I'm trying to recall. There had been somewhat of a problem around, that's true.

Morris

Did that have any echoes in your campaign?

Wilson

I don't think so.

Morris

Did the same people, by and large, work on your 1955 campaign, that had worked on the '53 campaign?

Wilson

Pretty much. I guess the base broadened by '55.

Opening a Joint Practice with Carl Metoyer and Wilmont Sweeney

Morris

Then, the next thing that turned up in the Tribune press clippings was your opening a joint practice with Carl Metoyer and Wilmont Sweeney.

Wilson

That's right.

Morris

Did you get to know them in the NAACP activities?

Wilson

Bill Sweeney and I met because Bill had been working for an older black lawyer I knew. Carl Metoyer was younger than I, but I'd known his family, and we're both Catholics, and we're both out of Louisiana, and he lived in the same general area, down in the Clawson School, the Watts tract area that I lived in. So I knew Carl Metoyer. He was a few years behind me in law school, brilliant student. A good lawyer, a very good lawyer. I had been a year meeting with George Vaughns, the man I started with, Clinton White--he was Justice White--Bill Dixon; William C. Dixon, Billy Dixon, talking about the formation of a partnership.

We had spent a year. We got close enough that we had several target dates for opening. I backed off each time, and finally I just permanently said, "I've changed my mind." I wanted to practice with Clint, who I recognized as a brilliant trial lawyer. During my years on the bench, I've never seen a jury lawyer any better than him, he's that good. And George Vaughns was a good friend; an older man, but a good friend at the time. But I finally backed off, and then I began to look around, and someone said that Carl wanted to put something together, so then I talked to Carl.

It was Carl who said he had some preliminary conversations with Bill Sweeney, and how would I feel about bringing Bill in? "Fine, I like Bill, I know Bill, and he's bright, and he's talented, and I think he's going to be a fine lawyer." So then the three of us met and found a piece of property that was up for auction by the city, and bought the property at auction, and put up a building.

Morris

Your law practice must have been doing pretty well by then.

Wilson

Yes. Yes, we were doing pretty well. Sweeney was the youngest in the practice. We built the building for four lawyers, although the way we built it, we could have added on, if we wanted, on top. We had some conversations with Don McCullum. He wasn't too ready to leave the D.A.'s office; he hadn't been out here too long, about four years.

So then we invited Allen Broussard to join us as an associate, with the promise that in the near future we would make him a partner. So we started out, it was Wilson, Metoyer, and Sweeney, and Broussard was an associate in the office. When I left in '60 to go on the bench, Broussard was made a partner, and it became Metoyer, Sweeney, and Broussard.

When I left for the superior court about three and a half years later, a few months after I left the muni court, we got Allen appointed into my spot on the municipal court.

4. IV Judicial and Mayoral Concerns

Appointment Considerations

Morris

I remember, yes. Was part of the work of the NAACP at this point, and the East Bay Democratic Club, to stay in touch with the statewide Democratic and Republican people to get some support?

Wilson

Yes, we did. Although, the way my appointment came about was a little different in that [Governor Edmund G., Sr.] Pat Brown had just been elected. He offered to appoint me to what was then the Adult Authority, and I said, "Thanks, but no thanks."

Morris

That's a full-time job.

Wilson

Yes. Then he leaked to the press the information that he was going to appoint a black to what is a state-level cabinet-type position, legal affairs officer. There'd never been a black appointed at that level, serving at that level, in any state administration in California. The person he had selected was Loren Miller; the late Loren Miller, a great constitutional lawyer. He leaked the information because Loren, as a student in college, had made a trip to Russia. And so the Los Angeles papers redbaited him so badly that Pat backed off appointing Loren.

But then he already made the commitment he was going to appoint a black, so he looked around. So he offered the job to Cecil Poole, with whom he had worked. Cecil had worked under him as a deputy district attorney when Pat was district attorney of San Francisco County. So he knew Cecil and Cecil's high level of competence and ability, and he offered Cecil the job. Cecil said, "Yes, if you will promise me a superior court judgeship."

Pat reacted negatively to that, and didn't like that kind of approach.

Morris

Was Cecil saying that he wanted a superior judgeship for himself?

Wilson

To follow. For himself, for himself. He wanted a commitment that when he left the job, that he would be appointed to the superior court. No black had ever been appointed directly, I don't think. There may have been one in southern California that had been appointed directly, but certainly not up here.

Now, Pat's panicking, [laughs] he's got to find a black to appoint to the job as legal affairs officer.

Wilson

It's also the executive clemency secretary. And I said, "Thanks, but no thanks. We're in the early years of a new law practice, I'm happy there." Then, as only Pat Brown--you have to know him, he threw up his hands, and then he turned to [Assemblyman] Byron Rumford, who was the only other person in the room. He says, "Byron, what does Lionel want? Sh--." Byron just shrugged. I said, "Pat, I didn't support you because I wanted any kind of an appointment. I supported you because I wanted FEPC [Fair Employment and Practices Commission], and I wanted fair housing, and I believe that you as a governor can deliver them. And that's why I supported you."

I said, "I don't want the job, I wasn't looking for the job." That was like water off a duck's back. He never even answered that, responded to that. He just changed the subject, he said, "There ought to be a Negro judge in Alameda County, there should have been one a long time ago. How about it, would you take it?" He said, "But it's going to be in the Oakland Municipal Court."

He knew that I, although raised here, at that time I was living in Berkeley. I lived in Berkeley for about seven or eight years right after coming out of the service. He said, "But you'll have to move back to Oakland, because it's going to be Oakland Municipal Court. How about it?"

Morris

Were you ready for that kind of a question?

Wilson

No, no. I said, "I certainly agree with you that there should have been a Negro judge a long time ago, and I think there should be. But I hadn't thought of myself in that respect." I said, "There's George Vaughns, who's been around many years, there's Clint White" and I mentioned a few others, two or three.

He ignored that and said, "You let me know when you've made a decision." Once a month for eleven months he had a lawyer who was close to him, and later became a superior court judge, call me--who was active politically. "Have you moved into Oakland?" That was the question, "Have you moved into Oakland?"

Morris

Oh, that was the clue. If you moved, you were ready to take the job.

Wilson

That was the clue. If I'd moved into Oakland, then I had decided to take it, if I didn't--So then the last time, it was more forceful. The last time, after eleven successive months, the message came, "Fish or cut bait, make up your mind." "Tell Lionel he's got to make up his mind."

Morris

This was somebody that was not in the governor's office as an appointments officer.

Wilson

That's right. This was someone who was very active in Democratic politics, was a major fund raiser, and close to him. I had decided I would not take it. I discussed it with my wife [Dorothy], and told her that I'd made up my mind I wasn't going to take it. Then, before I could convey that information to the governor--I went down to the court one morning on some simple little matter, probably an uncontested divorce.

The case was assigned to the late Justice James Agee. A fine judge, and a fine man, and I'd had a good relationship with him. When my matter was over, he said, "Lionel, do you have a few minutes, I'd like to talk to you." I said, "Yes, I do." So we went into the chambers, and for about thirty or forty minutes, he just talked to me about all of the reasons why I should accept this appointment.

It was common knowledge that it was simply up to me to say I wanted it and I'd take it, and that I would be appointed. He changed my mind. He convinced me that I ought to take it.

Morris

Really. What argument did he offer?

Wilson

He was arguing about the good I could do in the community in that role, and the importance it was to the community and what it would mean to many blacks in the community and those coming before the court,to know that there was a black judge there. That it would give them a greater feeling of security.

Also that it offered potential, that there was a future for me in the judiciary and that he was satisfied that I wouldn't be there too long before I would be moved up to the superior court.

Morris

Was it the fact that it was municipal court that made you reluctant?

Wilson

No, no. Although I did resent the fact that if you were black you went to the municipal court regardless of what your background and experience was. But in my case it wasn't a motivating factor because the superior court required ten years of practice, and I just barely had ten years of practice.

But when I thought of Loren Miller--he went to the municipal court. This man should have gone to the supreme court. John Bussey went to the municipal court. He should have been going to some appellate court. And it was very common practice among whites to go directly from private practice to courts of appeals and the supreme court. But if you're black it was a municipal court.

There weren't that many black judges, anyway. There were none in this area--well, the one, John Bussey. When I went on, there were none in Alameda County and one north of Los Angeles, and that was John Bussey who was appointed by Knight. But southern California, there were, I don't know, maybe two or three, that's all, four at the most. I did resent that, but that wasn't the factor there with me, personally, because I felt I hadn't had ten years yet. I hadn't been that distinguished, myself, in the law, to the point that I could fell that I should necessarily go to the superior court at that time. But Jim Agee also felt that I would move up to the superior court rather rapidly, and as it turned out, I did.

So when I walked out of his office, I had changed my mind. I went back to my office.

Living in Berkeley and Oakland; Municipal Court, 1960-1965

Morris

What did your wife say when you told her you'd changed your mind?

Wilson

I called my wife, and said, "I've changed my mind, I'm going on the bench. I've just had a talk with Judge Agee, and he's convinced me. So we're going to move to Oakland; you'll have to start looking for a place." So she did. She said, "Okay," and she started looking for a place.

Morris

How had you happened to settle in Berkeley when you came back from the service? With your wife and three kids?

Wilson

Oh, I think it was simply a matter that I was lucky enough to get some good housing. First in university housing, down below San Pablo, and then a nice little apartment in--no, I moved to Berkeley just before I left, that's what, for the service. I got married, and I was married for ten months--a friend of mine, an older man who I had become friends with when I was in college as an undergraduate and working as a redcap. He was one of the senior redcaps, porters. He owned this building that was right across from San Pablo Park, and had kind of a penthouse apartment, which he let me have reasonably. That's how I got to Berkeley.

Morris

Right across from where all those baseball games are played.

Wilson

That's right, right across where all those baseball games were played.

Morris

That's a nice neighborhood.

Wilson

So then we bought a duplex on 62nd and Market, which was in Oakland, the house next door was in Berkeley. [laughs] That's how big a deal it was that we had to live in Oakland. We were buying a home on Glen, and we retained that home on Glen, figuring I'd move up to superior court, ultimately, and we'd move back into it.

Berkeley was a different place then. I never thought I'd see that day when I wouldn't want to be caught dead in Berkeley. We rented the house out. We were renting it to students, and graduate students, and all went well until we rented it to a group of graduate students from another part of the world, out of a different culture. Not that they were bad people, their culture was so different, and what they were doing in the house my wife couldn't take it.

She kept after me, "We've got to get rid of that house. I can't stand it what they're doing in that house." So finally I said, "Okay, all right," I caved in, "Sell the house," and six months later I was--here again I never had to fight to get the superior court. Pat Brown just said, for some time, "Lionel's going to get the next opening," so sure enough, when the next opening came he moved me up to the superior court.

Morris

Did that legal redress committee that you'd been chairman of give you any sense of things that you would like to see happen as a judge, that you then--

Wilson

Oh, yes, certainly it did. Even as a judge, I continued to work with the NAACP, just as Don McCullum has continued to be a leader, to fight all the injustices, the discrimination and the segregation, that we saw around us. So I went on working with the NAACP.

Morris

By the time you went on the bench were there beginning to be some black men and women in the county probation department, and the sheriff's department--

Wilson

Yes, as a matter of fact, the irony of it is that, for instance in the probation department, my youngest brother became the first black senior probation officer in Alameda County. This was a direction that he decided to go, and went into probation work. I didn't steer him in any way into it; it was his own independent decision, that he wanted to get into that field.

Impact of National Sports and Budget Decisions

Morris

That might be a good place to stop for today. I've run over your time, I know.

Wilson

Yes. Although I haven't had a buzz for my eleven o'clock appointment. I don't know what's happened.

Morris

May be sitting patiently out there. Okay, thank you. Do you suppose maybe next week or the next week we could sneak in another session before your--

Wilson

I will try. Just a little tight, you know.

Morris

I understand.

Wilson

So many things keep coming up. The Coliseum is fighting to insure that Oakland will have a National Football League franchise here. The National Football League is meeting in Phoenix, so they've gone to great lengths to set up a team to go down and lobby the league. And they insist that it's very important that I be there.

Morris

I can see that.

Wilson

So, Sunday morning I take off for Phoenix, and I'll return early Wednesday.

Morris

That shoots that week, yes.

Wilson

I've turned down, in the last week, two requests that I go to China, one from the university, from one of the associate chancellors. Last week-end they wanted me in New York to fight another matter that's critical, I think, in this country, and that is [President Ronald] Reagan's domestic budget. They wanted me but only, they said, if you and your wife pay for your transportation and motel when you get back there.

Dutch Morial, who is the new president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, is doing an outstanding job of organizing the key mayors around the country, those they see as having the greatest political strength, organizing to fight it. A group of us met in San Francisco two weeks ago and then this weekend, as I say. But I just couldn't go. I already had four commitments I had to keep.

Morris

Yes? Did you tell them to save all these things until after the Oakland election?

Wilson

I sent them a strong telegram of support saying, "I'm with you, and just let me know what you want me to do." But it goes on and on.

Superior Court Pre-Trial Release Program

Morris

[It must be a difficult time to be a Democrat.

Wilson

One of the things I really pushed when I went on the superior court was a better approach to bail. We put together a task force to work on that. There was] an officer of the Alameda County Public Defender; the district attorney [Thomas] Coakley; the chief of police of Oakland, and the president of the Alameda County Bar Association. Well, Coakley was bored. He thought everybody ought to go to prison anyway, but I'm talking about a bail, a pre-trial release program.

So after about three months he turned it over to Ed, and Ed Meese was his representative. Because Ed Meese was the heir apparent to replace him, until he got tied up with Ronald Reagan in his campaign for governor and moved off in a different direction. Otherwise, Ed Meese would have been the--

Morris

County district attorney.

Wilson

Instead of Lowell Jensen, Meese would have been the Alameda County District Attorney.

Morris

That's interesting, I never thought of that part of the whole thing.

Wilson

There's no question about it. It was all set up, it was wired, [chuckles] and it was going to happen. It's kind of sad to me; I think that Ed has become--I don't know whether it's his association with Reagan or what--but far more conservative than he was. He [Meese] was more moderate before he left. Or maybe I just--for instance, he was very supportive of the bail for pre-trial release program. After putting it together, I chaired it for a year, and then I turned it over to him.

Anyway, I've had contact there. [Vice President George] Bush invited me back to a small meeting with twelve or fifteen people. It turned out that he wanted support for his zone--

Morris

Enterprise zone?

Wilson

Enterprise zone program. I went back just to see what it looked like, really. But he got into a situation where he couldn't handle the mayor of Baltimore, who was the only Democrat in the room beside me. I took care of that for him, so then I began to get invitations [laughs] back there. Yes, I'm a Democrat, but I'm the mayor of a city of all kinds of people, of all kinds of political persuasions.

I'm proud of the fact that--although a lot of my Democratic friends don't like it--that not once, in almost eight years, has any--I don't even allow it to get into discussions on the floor around any partisan political issues.

Morris

That's tough to do sometimes.

Wilson

It's tough, but I've done it.

Morris

The buzzer did buzz. Thank you.

Wilson

Yes, thanks.

5. V Oakland Economic Development Commission Chair, 1965-1969

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A Problem with Mayor Houlihan's Appointments

Morris

When last we met, we had talked about your work on the superior court and we had just gotten to the point where I wanted to ask you about the Oakland Economic Development Commission.

Wilson

OEDCI.

Morris

Right. And you were appointed to that in 1965, according to the files of the Tribune. From those clippings, I put together a little biographical chronology.6

Wilson

Yes. Well, actually, I wasn't appointed, I was selected by--well, I guess I was appointed, because Mayor [John] Houlihan was putting the board together and he asked me to chair it, and after some preliminaries with him I agreed to do so.

Actually, my name was brought up in a meeting where they were selecting a board chairperson and Justice [Clinton] White, then Attorney White, I think, said, "Well, the judge won't take it, won't accept it--"

Morris

Meaning you.

Wilson

Meaning me. And I was on the superior court at the time, and so Mayor Houlihan said, "Well why won't he?" And he [White] said, "Well, because of you. He said that he's afraid that you are going to 'try to run the show' and control it and under those circumstances, he won't serve, because--" I had been approached and asked about it and I had told them that.

So Houlihan committed that he would not interfere with the operation, and not only that, but he wouldn't even serve on the board, and he didn't. And so I took the chairmanship and served for six years.

Morris

What was your thinking? And it sounds as if Clinton White was a close colleague of yours.

Wilson

Very close, yes, he was.

Morris

And had you and he talked about what you hoped that OEDCI might do?

Wilson

Well, I don't know that we had. He had asked me about whether I would take the chairmanship of the board.

Morris

That's something that was of interest to you and your colleagues, that this commission--

Wilson

Well, it was of interest to me, it was of interest to me. It was the anti-poverty program. I had hopes that it was going to do good things for the people who needed help in the city and who were economically depressed, and I had hopes that it was going to provide some jobs and some programs that would produce training for many of the people who needed it and as a base for them, ultimately, for getting jobs.

Morris

Had you had some differences of opinion with Mayor Houlihan that led you to think he might--

Wilson

Yes, yes.

Morris

What were the problems?

Wilson

Well, Mayor Houlihan called me one day and said that there were no blacks on any important boards or commissions in the city, and I don't know whether there were any at all. There may have been one or two on minor ones, but there were none serving on any of the important boards or commissions. And he said he wanted to correct that, he wanted to add, he was thinking of two in, as I recall, civil service, and I don't remember whether the other one was the port, or it was another important board, and asked me for recommendations of blacks to serve whom he could appoint.

And I said fine, and I called together a committee of about fifteen people who were community leaders from around the city, a broad perspective, a real broad and representative group. Although I've been identified as a Democrat all my life, I had several Republicans with whom I was friendly--I guess Clint White was probably a Republican at that time. Anyway, I made it broadly representative of the community and put it up to them, told them of the call from the mayor and what he wanted and so they, they did not want to sit still for that.

He wanted one specific person for each one, and they insisted on submitting three names for each of these positions, two positions. That was unacceptable to Houlihan when I called him, and we had words about it; he was a very volatile and aggressive personality, and I had to tell him off. And that was the end of it.

Morris

Oh dear, so there were no minority appointments--

Wilson

No. All he wanted to do was he simply wanted us, me, to rubber-stamp a couple of people he had in mind.

Morris

Oh, he already had some candidates.

Wilson

He already had a couple of people in mind, and the committee I put together found that unacceptable and I did too.

Morris

They weren't people that you and your committee would have come up with by, you know, your processes of selection?

Wilson

No.

Morris

And so did Houlihan go ahead and appoint those people that he had in mind anyway?

Wilson

I think he made a couple, he did make two or some of the appointments.

Morris

Did that kind of appointment process make it difficult for you to work with the people that were eventually appointed?

Wilson

No.

From the Ford Foundation Grey Areas Program to the Economic Opportunity Act

Morris

How did the Economic Development Committee go about their work. Did you have some staff?

Wilson

We had a staff, yes. We had a staff which really was a program group.

Morris

Was that when Norvel Smith was director?

Wilson

Well, yes. Actually, yes. I had served on a committee headed by a lawyer named Joe [Joseph E.] Smith who had been a former mayor [1947-1949], a one-term mayor on the council at a time when labor rose--at that time it was stronger--it rose up and I think the whole labor contingent was elected to the city council, and they only lasted one term.

Morris

They sure, yes, disappeared from history.

Wilson

That's right, and they were beaten right after that.

Anyway, Joe was made chairman of the committee that was the policy-making group for the old Ford Foundation Grey Areas program that had started earlier in the sixties. The Ford Foundation had put up a considerable amount of money and Senator [William] Knowland was active in the formation of the group that drafted that program.

Morris

The proposal to the Ford Foundation?

Wilson

The proposal to the Ford Foundation that Evilio Grillo wrote. That proposal was successful and was taken on by the Ford Foundation. They granted I think, first three million and then another two- and-a-half-million later on. That program had selected the Castlemont corridor as the area.

It was in a state of flux at the time, but people were changing and in and out, and they wanted to try to stabilize it. The theory was, let's put some money into this as a demonstration project and see whether we can't stabilize that section of the city.

Morris

Surrounding Castlemont.

Wilson

Around Castlemont High School. So that program was still active when the Economic Opportunity Act was passed in 1964. And Evilio had written them [Ford Foundation proposals], but Norvel became the--I guess Norvel Smith was the first director, was he? I guess he was.

Morris

Are you saying that he had worked with Evilio Grillo on the Ford Project?

Wilson

I'm trying to remember whether Norvel had worked on that project.

Lively District Meetings

Morris

There was a tie-in, if I remember correctly, with the old social planning council in the United Crusade. Is that correct?

Wilson

I don't know, I don't remember that. The way we organized, we organized by districts into seven districts throughout the city. Each district had its own community organization and its district council, and those were the same district councils that exist today, without the same people, but that's right.

So the board was made up of about a little over thirty people, maybe about thirty-two people. The city had three representatives on it, the mayor, George Vukasin, and the late Josh Rose.

The first thing I did as the chairman was to move it out of city hall, where it originally met into Franklin Recreation Center, and we met there for maybe, I don't know, I vaguely recall maybe about six months or so. Then I changed that and we began to meet once a month in a different district each month. We moved the meetings--the major meetings were held each month in a different part of the city in one of these seven districts, and we moved them around the city.

Morris

Did that bring in new people to the meetings and get more people involved?

Wilson

It got more people involved in the decision-making process, and that was the purpose of it. And every meeting for six years, I can't remember a meeting where they weren't literally hanging from the walls, whether we met in recreation centers, church halls, school auditoriums or what.

Morris

According to the articles I read in the Tribune, some of those meetings got pretty controversial.

Wilson

[chuckles] Listen, I'll say they were. In those days, and of course the only security--I was a superior court judge--the only security I had was if I thought that there was going to be a problem and I had good relationships with people around the city.

For instance, there was an organization called GIG, Group to Industrialize the Ghetto, and they were nearly all ex-cons; they all had criminal records. They were all trying to develop an economic base for their organization of people around them and I helped them and supported them and they would keep me apprised. If there was a rumble, they'd call me and say, "Judge, there's going to be a rumble tonight. What time are you going to arrive and where are you going to park?" And they would meet me there and they would provide my security.

Morris

To get in and out of the meeting.

Wilson

Yes. But I never had any trouble, I actually never had any trouble until the final meeting. They were sure there was going to be a rumble, and there was a rumble, and it was going to be a problem. Sure enough, they met me, and they were there, escorted me in when I walked in, and they were standing around the hall. They assumed the same type of dress that the [Black] Panthers did, and nothing happened. They were standing around, you know, obviously there for security purposes, and nothing happened.

I remember the first time I found it necessary that I make a judgment, and I called the chief of police and said, "Look, I understand there may be trouble tonight. Would you have a couple of people there? I don't want them in uniform." So he did. On the way out, we didn't have any trouble; but I was walking out with one of them who is a friend of mine today, and he said, "Judge," he said, "How often do you have meetings like this where they're this controversial and with this many people?"

And I said, "This is nothing unusual, this is a common meeting." He just shook his head and said, "My God, I don't know how you do it, because, you know, you're just, with no particular security."

And some of them were pretty wild. There was one in particular, a man named Baker who tried to be a real source of trouble, but we managed that. Anyway, my time is up.

Morris

Okay, that's a good beginning. Those were pretty exciting days.

Relationship with City Government

Wilson

We were one of only two in the nation of all of the programs around the country that were able to become independent and we operated without any controls of the city. The city government had no veto power over our conduct. We handled millions of dollars without any scandal, and we handled our own funds. This is the three members of the council who served, the mayor and the two members of the council who served. They had one vote, just like any of the other thirty-two or whatever it was people who served on that board. That was the only input that the city had, officially.

Morris

Was it a big struggle to reorganize as an independent body out from under the city?

Wilson

No. There was a struggle to get the independence, but once we got it we were staying the same body and the body didn't change, whereas it was a real struggle to get that independence.

Morris

How did you do that?

Wilson

I don't know, I guess I just went to the people and got enough community support, and we just insisted on it and kept pushing it and arguing it and got it.

Morris

So am I right that this would require the city council voting to sign off their role in charge of the economic development organization?

Wilson

I'm not sure whether they did, because if they had, if it was that way, I imagine they might have tried to regain control at one time or another. They could have; it just would have taken a majority on the council to regain control, and that never happened; not before I left, anyway.

6. VI Oakland Politics

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Campaign for Mayor, 1976

Morris

This morning I thought we might pick up with a question I raised about your decision to go from the bench and the Oakland Economic Development Corporation into running for mayor. When did you start thinking about that?

Wilson

Well, it didn't originate with me. There were some people in the community came to me approaching the 1973 election and suggested that I consider running for mayor at that time. This must have been in 1972. I looked at it and informed them, no, that I wasn't interested.

Morris

Because you had a good relationship with Mayor John Reading?

Wilson

No, no, simply because I hadn't thought of getting into that sort of--I had been on the bench just about eleven years or twelve years, and I was thinking more in terms of a future on the bench, so I just--it had never occurred to me that I might get involved politically in that way.

Morris

What changed your mind?

Wilson

Well, some of the same people and a few others came to me four years later in 1976. By then I guess I'd had about fifteen years on the bench, and by then I'd been through all the chairs and had presided over various phases of the court, the criminal division a couple of times, and the full court in 1973, and the appellate department, so I was viewing my work on the bench in a little different way by then. I suppose that I had reached a point where I found the idea just much more appealing.

Morris

Were there changes in the political picture here in Oakland that made the mayor's spot more interesting?

Wilson

Well, at that time, when they came to me four years later, I knew that John Reading was seriously considering not running, which made a significant difference, too. Not in terms of a question of any relationship I had with Reading, because I didn't have any relationship with Reading, but simply in terms of whether it made sense with regard to the element of success of such a campaign or not.

Morris

Does that sort of translate into whether or not it was possible to elect a mayor who was black? Had that been a consideration earlier?

Wilson

Oh, that was a consideration, yes.

Morris

Was there a really strong concern in the black community for a black mayor at that time?

Wilson

I felt there was, and there had been other people that had talked about it and had been talked about as potential candidates. There had been considerable talk around John Reading's side about a person, one man in the community. And then another one who couldn't make up his mind which way he would want to go if he went, whether he'd want to go with Reading's group or whether he wanted to go with the Democrats on the other side.

Morris

Would that have been Otho Green?

Wilson

No.

Morris

Was Otho Green a serious candidate or a serious possibility?

Wilson

I didn't look upon him as such at the time. No, that was the late John Williams, who headed up the Economic Development Department. As a matter of fact, he headed up the redevelopment agency.

Morris

Does that mean you and he would have worked closely together on your interest in the Economic Development--

Wilson

He and I had talked about it, yes. We would have worked very close together. He had an untimely death; he died of cancer, I think, a relatively early death; he was still in his fifties.

But he and I were friends and we had talked about it, and he had talked about the approaches that had been made to him from time to time. The approaches that had been made to him had been from the John Reading people.

Morris

That's interesting, he was already in the city government working for the city at that point?

Wilson

He was the redevelopment director. His bust is out there in City Center.

Morris

I know, I know. He must have been quite a remarkable fellow in--

Wilson

He was, he was. He was a very, very charismatic personality.

Morris

How come he decided not to run for mayor?

Wilson

I think because they didn't give him sufficient commitment in terms of money. Not for his pocket, but for his campaign. He felt that there simply wasn't a sufficient commitment there. There was talk, a lot of talk, but he didn't see any concrete evidence of willingness and ability to raise the money.

New Oakland Committee

Morris

Where were people like Bill Knowland and the Kaisers and some of the people at Clorox Company in this kind of discussion?

Wilson

I don't know. I wasn't having any discussions with them, and when I did get into it, they supported my major opponent. There were a number of other candidates, but the major opponent was the president of the school board, a man named [ ] Tucker, and they supported him.

The Tribune endorsed him and the business community got behind him and raised money and he had sort of a lot of money for his campaign. An interesting sidelight of that was that almost to the date of his death, Edgar Kaiser from time to time said to me how sorry he was that he went along with the business community and did not support me in my first campaign. He used to send this big plant once a year, I don't remember whether it was Christmas or something, almost right up to the time of his death.

Morris

Even though, on the Economic Development Commission you had worked with people from Kaiser and from--

Wilson

Well, it wasn't the commission. I had worked with them when I was chairman of the anti-poverty board and also when the Black Panthers became very active. The Panthers had picketed two liquor stores, both on Grove Street, owned by the same person, a black man. One on Grove around 24th and one on Grove and about 54th.

Then they had said to the press and announced publicly that when they completed that then they were going to look at the white businesses with a view to going after them on the basis of integration and employment.

At that point, a group of the leading business people, including Edgar Kaiser and Bill Knowland and then chairman of the board of Safeway, Quentin Reynolds, a group of them had gotten together on someone's recommendation to form an organization called the New Oakland Committee, which exists today.

What happened is that they raised the seed money for the organization. Then just about when they thought they had the three caucuses formed--a business caucus, a labor caucus, and a minority caucus--when they got to the minority caucus, there was what was called the Black Caucus, made up of the late Judge [Don] McCullum--he was not a judge then--Don McCullum, Elijah Turner, and Paul Cobb and a young fellow named Galloway who, at the time, was active with the NAACP. They said, when they were approached about this organization, "Fine, yes, but we have to be the exclusive representatives of the black community." That was unacceptable to the business leaders who were putting this organization together, so everything stopped.

Then there was the chief administrator that they'd had for Kaiser, who worked with me then in the anti-poverty program and who apparently said to them, "Look, despite what the Black Caucus says, if Lionel Wilson is willing to do it, he can put together that minority caucus for you."

So they approached me and I said, "Well," and I looked at it and I said, "Okay, I'll do it, only on one condition and that is that I get assurance that once you form the organization, that you're going to be going to the meetings, or at least send your second-level aides in to represent these corporations and that you're going to continue to be active," that is, that these people who were CEO's and so forth would continue to be part of the committee.

They made that commitment to me and so then I sent the Black Caucus a letter saying, look--or a call, I don't remember--saying, "Look, I'm going to form it, the minority caucus, and you ought to be represented in order to be a part of it, but you can't call the shots--"

Morris

You can't tell the committee what to do?

Wilson

Yes, so they backed off of that, when I did that they backed off of their position and agreed to become a part of it, and that's how the New Oakland Committee was formed.

Morris

Did some of those people later turn out to help in your campaign?

Wilson

It was formed out of fear when the Panthers announced that they were going to then move--after they had completed their attack on this black businessman--that they were going to move into the white business community.

Morris

Did you see the Panthers as a serious threat, or did you see them as having some ideas that needed to be discussed or were worth discussing?

Wilson

Threat to whom?

Morris

Well, to the comfort and good future of Oakland.

Wilson

Well, I saw it from a dual perspective. One, in terms that I never have condoned violence and confrontation as the answer, solution to social problems. And the other one was that I saw the Panthers as a catalyst to bring about some meaningful change.

Morris

Kind of following up all the work that the NAACP had been doing for years?

Wilson

Yes, well, doing the same thing but doing it in a different way.

Morris

And did some of the people who were active in the Black Panthers then come along into your campaign and into the mainstream?

Wilson

Ultimately, when I ran for mayor, they did. The Panthers were active in my campaign in 1977.

Now I had been told that Huey Newton had said that if I had been willing to run in 1973 that Bobby Seale would not have been a candidate then. I don't know whether that's true or not.

Morris

Yes, because Bobby Seale, as I recall, was pretty much a young firebrand.

Wilson

Well, yes, I suppose he was. He ran in 1973 and got into a runoff against John Reading. Of course in the runoff he was very, very badly beaten.

Campaign Organization

Morris

Looking through the newspaper clippings on that campaign, I found that you had kind of an exploratory committee called the Friends of Oakland that [County Clerk] Rene Davidson was chairman of. Do you remember how that worked or what role Mr. Davidson played?

Wilson

Rene became one of the leaders in our attempt to win the mayor's seat.

Morris

Was he one of the people who originally had been encouraging you to run for office?

Wilson

I don't know that he was. It was more I think around the late Dick Groulx and some labor people.

Morris

Was that when Dick Groulx was head of the Alameda County Labor Council?

Wilson

No, I think he was a deputy then to someone else; this was before he became the secretary-treasurer.

Morris

But would some of those early people have been from the labor movement wanting you to run?

Wilson

Yes.

Morris

Who else do you recall?

Wilson

I think there was a lawyer who was on the school board about that time named [Seymour] Rose.

Morris

By the time that you did run, was Ron Dellums--he was already in the Congress--would he have been somebody you worked with at all or who offered some support for the campaign?

Wilson

I don't remember Ron being in my campaign. I supported Ron from the first time he ran for Congress, but that --

Morris

When he was still more or less a candidate of the traditional Democratics or of the new coalition of more activist political people?

Wilson

Yes. I wasn't a part of that, but I did support Ron.

Morris

What I was kind of wondering about was, in Berkeley there's been a lot of attention given to differences of opinion between the more traditional Democrats and more activist--

Wilson

I was more in line at that time with the traditional Democrats.

Morris

But was that difference a problem in Oakland, in trying to put together a campaign and run for mayor?

Wilson

Well, Oakland was sort of just a big blob. There was nothing, no real organization other than-- The only real organization, I guess, was the East Bay Democratic Club around Assemblyman Byron Rumford.

When I really took a good look at Oakland, I was amazed to find how little organization there was.

Morris

That's interesting when you're talking of a city this size.

Wilson

Politically, I mean.

Morris

I understand. How did you go about putting together a campaign? Did you get a professional manager?

Wilson

Well, as a matter of fact, I had a little group of people around me who were urging me to run once I indicated I was interested in running. There was a group of people around me, mostly pretty moderate Democrats, black, white, and Hispanics. I raised much more money than I anticipated I was going to be able to raise. Considerably.

Morris

More money was raised than you thought?

Wilson

Ultimately, yes. But I didn't expect to raise that kind of money, so I was looking for someone to manage the campaign. I wasn't thinking of any of the high-powered consultants who were around at that day.

I selected Sandre Swanson, who was a young fellow--he had started to work for Ron, that's right. I remember now because Ron let him have a leave to run my campaign, and large numbers of people around me were very upset because Sandre was inexperienced. He'd never run a political campaign except in college, so he obviously had no track record and no history, but I had confidence in him. And he did a good job, I thought.

Morris

Good, good. Well, sometimes a young man makes up in energy for what he may lack in knowledge of some of the ins and outs of the town.

Morris

Did you and he put together an organization by district or ethnic group or what kind of a plan did you work out?

Wilson

Well, we tried to do it by district rather than by ethnic group.

Morris

What areas turned out to give you most support?

Wilson

It was pretty broad in support in the flatlands, north, east, west Oakland.

Morris

Was that still the time when you had committees of lawyers and committees of doctors and committees of educators--

Wilson

Well, I did that; I did put together committees of doctors and committees of lawyers and a committee of teachers and a committee of cosmetologists and committees of ministers.

Morris

Did you spend a lot of time out in the neighborhoods and in the churches talking to people?

Wilson

Yes, I did.

Morris

Did Mr. Swanson go with you on all those, or was he going out to other areas?

Wilson

I don't remember, but I'm sure he did.

State Political Figures

Morris

Was Byron Rumford himself able to put some time in on strategy?

Wilson

Yes.

Morris

How about Nick Petris?

Wilson

Nick was supportive, but I don't remember him as being particularly active in the campaign, other than endorsing and supporting.

Morris

I guess I was wondering about how much interaction there is between a local mayor and council election and the assembly and senate races.

Wilson

Well, up until the last few years, there was considerable interaction. But then, by that time, [State Senator] Nick Petris was pretty well entrenched. Then Byron and then [Assemblyman] John Miller, who took his place, each of them was pretty well entrenched. Then [Assemblyman] Lockyer moved in behind the assemblyman from Alameda who was killed by an automobile, [Assemblyman] Bob Crown, who he was just beginning to develop his thing. And particularly in the early years, well, even the first, say seven or eight years of my holding office, I had a close working relationship with the legislators. They were very supportive of the city issues and have been consistently so.

Morris

How about [Assemblyman] Tom Bates?

Wilson

Even Bates, when the chips were down. Bates and I never really saw eye to eye. Even in the early days, it was kind of a tenuous relationship.

Morris

How many people who worked on your campaign had the time and energy to stay around and help once you, you know, in appointive positions or committees or anything like that once you got into the mayor's office? Was there much carry-over?

Wilson

Only in a general way.

Morris

At what point did you feel like it was a good possibility you were going to get elected?

Wilson

I always thought I was going to, from the time I decided to run--

Morris

Did you! Good for you, good for you!

Offer of Appointment to the State Court of Appeal

Wilson

When the governor's office said to me, "Look, have you decided whether you're going to run for mayor or whether you're going to move to the court of appeals?" And he was offering me the court appointment to the court of appeals and asked whether I'd made that decision, and I said "Yes, I have." But I didn't say I'm going to run for mayor, I said, "I'm going to become the mayor."

Morris

So you turned down the appointment to the appeals court in order to run for mayor. Was that a tough decision?

Wilson

No. It would have been and I might have gone a different way, and I've often wondered about that, if I had known that I was two or three years younger than a judge in southern California who was a distinguished jurist who was a year ahead of me on the court. He was appointed to the municipal court in Los Angeles a year ahead of me and he was appointed to the superior court roughly, give or take, a year ahead of me. He was a distinguished jurist. I felt that there was going to be a black on the supreme court of California, but I thought it would be Justice [Bernard] Jefferson. If I had known that he was older, then the chances are his age would preclude him. That's the only reason he wasn't.

Morris

And Allen Broussard was appointed instead.

Wilson

Well, it went through other possibilities before it got to Allen Broussard. Allen ultimately was appointed [in 1981], yes, but there were some other ramifications. There was a lawyer in Los Angeles, a former Cal football player who was offered the position and turned it down, said he couldn't afford it. [who he?]

Morris

He was making more money in private practice than he would on the bench?

Wilson

Yes.

Wilson

He offered me the court of appeals, he didn't offer me the supreme court. Well, but down the line. Anyway, it might have made a difference, if I had thought when the time came, that I would be offered the supreme court. But, as I said, I thought it was going to southern California. I've never regretted it, though.

Morris

Was this Jerry Brown [Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr.] you talked with, or was it all done through the appointment secretary?

Wilson

Which appointment?

Morris

The possibility of going on the state appeals court.

Wilson

I guess you enter politics and you get a feel for what's going to happen and you get to know the people close. Tony Kline, who's now a justice of the court of appeals, was the legal affairs secretary, and I had gotten to know Tony well.

I pretty much well knew that I was in line to be moved up to the court of appeals, just like I never asked for a promotion to the superior court. But Pat Brown just started saying, "Lionel Wilson is going to get the next opening on the superior court." So [later on] when the governor's office says--I guess maybe it was Tony--[one day] while I was in the governor's office, said, "Well, have you made up your mind whether you're going to the court of appeals or are you going to run for mayor?" And that was as much discussion as there was.

Morris

It's kind of iffy; doesn't somebody say, we'd like to appoint you to the appeals court.

Wilson

Well, not really, not in the real world.

Morris

You make a major decision like that based on this sort of informal discussion that's in the air?

Wilson

Well, if you think there's any question about it or you think that it's something that may or may not happen if you--I was satisfied that, although I hadn't been formally offered appointment, that it was coming.

Morris

That's very valuable. It takes a lot of intestinal fortitude to continue on in public life at that level.

Wilson

Well, I wasn't that ambitious anyway, in terms of moving up from a muni court, for instance. Some of my fellow judges who ultimately went to superior court were, you know, they were just red-hot to go to the superior court. I was doing a job in the muni court and I was satisfied and happy doing the job I was doing and I wasn't worried about movement to the superior court. I never asked for it, the governor just started talking about it himself.

Morris

Were you concerned that there wasn't enough diversity on the court so that there were some questions that perhaps were not being dealt with?

Wilson

Yes, I felt so.

7. VII Three Terms as Mayor, 1977-1990

Responsibilities and Accomplishments

Morris

Could we talk a little bit about what you hoped to deal with as mayor of Oakland, what you saw as the pressing issues and, you know, how it felt to go from the bench into running a city the size of Oakland?

Wilson

Well, if I had been in the same position that most judges are in, it would have been entirely different. But I had chaired the anti-poverty program for six years from right after the act was passed until December 31st of 1969. And I was a hands-on chairman and I was into everything in and about the city.

While I was chairman of the anti-poverty program I started putting together the first anti-drug program in the city of Oakland. Actually, it was the first program that was put together in the Bay Area. And I put together the first formal pre-trial release bail program and I put together the first on-the-job training program for the city of Oakland, so I had been involved in--

Morris

On-the-job-training for city hires, for city employees to bring in new kinds of people.

Wilson

So I had been involved in so many different ways in the city's activities that this was not a new world for me when I moved into it, other than I had not been official--well, I guess I was an official part of city government because the anti-poverty program did represent the city of Oakland. But even at that, I was successful in taking it more to the people than almost any other city in the country.

There was only one other city that, as I think, that was able to go independent. That is, my anti-poverty board ran the program. We controlled the money. The city had no control over it, had no power over the money that was allocated to us in that program.

Morris

Did that cause some problems for the city council?

Wilson

Yes, for the mayor, mainly.

Morris

Mayor Reading. But when you became a member of the council as mayor?

Wilson

No, by then, that program had moved on. Model Cities had come along and replaced it and that program was no longer alive.

Morris

The anti-poverty program. But the Model Cities--

Wilson

Things that had followed it were there.

Morris

Model Cities, as I recall, also had its own elected board. I was wondering if some city council members saw some of these new decision-making bodies as kind of a threat to the city council?

Wilson

I'm sure they did.

Morris

Were there some city council people that you were particularly comfortable with, that were more likely to support you?

Wilson

Well, when I came on, in terms of the city council, the city council had three representatives on my anti-poverty board. One was the mayor, the other one was the late Josh Rose, who was the first black council member, and George Vukasin, who was a leader on the council.

The first thing I did was to call George after I was elected and said, "I'd like to talk to you." "Fine!" he said. "John Reading never talked to me," so he was happy to talk to me. I sat down and, although John Reading and I were constantly fighting over the anti-poverty program, I had never had any quarrels with George Vukasin while he was on the board. And we sat down and talked and he was happy to have a relationship with the mayor and vice-versa.

So I moved in with a much stronger position than normally a mayor would have had, a new mayor coming in, especially coming from a different medium, because I had George Vukasin supporting me. And he brought with him three or four votes.

Morris

More from the middle-of-the-road or business community?

Wilson

Yes, that's right.

Oakland Raiders

Morris

Well, good strategy, good strategy. Could we take just a couple of seconds each to tell me some things that have gotten a lot of public interest like the Port of Oakland and the Raiders? Many youngsters reading your oral history are going to think first about Lionel Wilson and the Raiders.

Wilson

Like the voters did. There's no question among the politicians that that's what killed me. Morris They left, you know. They were everybody's favorite local citizens and then they left, all while you've been mayor.

Wilson

That's right, and they'll probably be back while I'm mayor. At least the decision, probably, to come back.

Well, any one of those subjects, to even talk about them, are very involved. To just make a passing reference to them would be to do them an injustice.

As far as the Raiders are concerned, there was a lot more to it than most people understand. Al Davis simply had made up his mind that he was going to move. He wanted to move, and he thought Los Angeles has a far more fertile field of opportunity for support in numbers and money, and that was it. He decided to move the team. He had made up his mind to move it, in my opinion, and he had complete control.

He had won a lawsuit in a fight with a major stockholder. He just had a contract, and even though he owned some stock, he was only a minority owner. But then came the lawsuit, which was presided over by Judge Redmond Staats--and his contract prevailed over the equity interest of the owner of the majority of the stock. And that gave him the power. Out of that lawsuit, the court found that that contract he had gave him complete power to do anything he wanted to with the Raiders.

Morris

That's interesting when the city and county also have an interest in it because the city and county built the Coliseum.

Port of Oakland

Morris

How about the Port of Oakland, which in some ways seems to be a more important factor in the city's economic picture?

Wilson

Well it is, it is. It certainly is. In terms of economics, it's the most prolific and the most important economic factor, if you want to take a single one in the city, in relation to the city. The Port of Oakland simply was a port that, somewhere back years ago someone abused power and, as a result of it, the people gave it semi-autonomy.

Then there was a far-seeing visionary port director [Ben Nutter] who foresaw that the then wave of the future was going to be in container shipping.7 He moved the port into that area and they got the jump on all the other ports.

But it was inevitable that as the other ports like Seattle and Los Angeles and Long Beach recognized the merits of focusing on container shipping that there were some physical factors which meant that, ultimately, they were going to pass up the city of Oakland in terms of ultimate productivity. And it's not really a reflection on the Port of Oakland, it's just facts of life, distances between Seattle and the Far East and the amount of money that these larger cities like Los Angeles and Seattle have to invest. Long Beach with its tidelands oil money had far more money to invest, in addition to some physical factors which relate to the distance the ships have to travel from Tokyo, for instance. So it was inevitable that they would pass up Oakland.

Regional Government

Morris

What about the long-running question of regional government? From Oakland's point of view, from your perspective, has it seemed at any point realistic or to anybody's advantage--

Wilson

Well, it would be realistic if it was done logically and objectively, if it was put together in terms of where the strength was and where the center of activity should be. And there's no question but what it's Oakland.

San Francisco's dead, as some top key business people have said who were close to it. They said, even before they moved American President Lines over here, that they ought to recognize that, with container shipping there just was no future for San Francisco. It could not be the leader because, for instance, the trucks. It's a peninsula, and it isn't like here where the trucks come over land and they can just drive up to the port and drive out with the goods. Of course, that wasn't really what killed San Francisco at the time, but over a period of time it would have happened anyway because of the geography.

There were politics in San Francisco which played a major role in its demise. San Francisco still wants to control the bay. Dianne Feinstein, when she was mayor, was trying to find some way to regionalize shipping in the ports, with a view to San Francisco having the power. It didn't make any kind of sense and that's why she couldn't succeed.

Morris

Did you put any energy into some of these committees to address these regional issues, not only the port, but water quality and transportation and--

Wilson

Yes, I have. I have been involved in--

Morris

Do you see any progress?

Wilson

I think progress has been made, and it's a difficult problem. When you're talking about power, you're talking about taking the power away from each city and giving it to a regional board, or committee, or commission, or whatever it's going to be. It can just change the whole balance of power in terms of who controls what. It gets into not only the political factors, but the economic factors and so forth, you know.

Advice to Young People

Morris

One last question, what about some good advice for young people coming up, as to politics or government, where they might find opportunity and what it takes to be the mayor of a major city in the increasingly complicated world.

Wilson

Well, I think that if a young person has any interest in government and if a young person understands that politics should not be a dirty word, that politics is something that invades every facet of life from the cradle to the grave of all of us--the very air we breathe, the clothing that we wear, the way the coffin is made up. Every facet of life is influenced and determined by political decisions somewhere.

So it's so important to life, and I think that Oakland has become one of the cities where citizens have become more and more awakened to the fact of what an important part politics plays in their lives. And the citizens' participation is probably far more active here than almost any city in the country.

It does play a very significant role and I think that in terms of anyone who ultimately was interested in becoming mayor, you have to find some way to get there, you know. You can't just say, well I just decided I want to be a candidate. The people decide that. You can--technically, anyone can file, if you come up with the fees and just live in the city and be of minimum age and so forth and file. But in terms of ultimately winning--the things that go into winning--many factors can come into play from one four-year period to the other.

More About the Raiders

Wilson

For instance, a year ago when we were negotiating with the Raiders, I told some of the people representing the Raiders, " I was initially skeptical of the marketing plan that was put together to try to bring back the Raiders. But once I decided that it was a plan that was good for Oakland, a plan that in my view had a tremendous financial potential for Oakland, as mayor I had no choice but to support it without regard to what I thought of the Raiders."

And I did, but knowing all the time that it was a political negative, because part of it was that the media plays such a significant part and the media had jumped on what they saw as the ultimate cost, six hundred million dollars over a fifteen-year period. It was a fifteen-year lease and all this money [that would be spent by the city if the Raiders agreed to return to Oakland]. They emphasized, they gave people the feeling that this was money that could have gone into the schools or could have gone into other social programs, when as a matter of fact there was not a dime that was going to be available for the schools. The marketing program, the money was coming from the consumer, from the people who bought the tickets, and that's true if the Raiders come today.

But it became a politcal football, and it was built up, and when the Ross people--Richie Ross is a bright and creative political consultant, and they realized what was there and they just laid on that. And Riles jumped on it, and the press was saying over and over and over, were giving people the impression that, yes, why weren't these monies being used to do some of the more important things? And if there was money there, their point was sound, but there was no money there because the marketing plan, every dime has to do with the sale of tickets. Every dime of revenue was entirely related to the sale of the tickets. But that wasn't the way it was sold to the people, you see.

So then people became so aroused from all over the city and I could just see it coming, they were so upset--all you heard was, "The Raiders, Raiders, and all the money that's going into the Raiders that ought to go to the schools," in particular.

And there was no support from the press, the media, to educate the people and say, hey, wait a minute, you're way off base, there's not a dime there. Every dime has to come from the sale of tickets, not from any government funds, not from any tax funds. And I saw that building up over a year ago and I told them that, but--

Morris

There was no way to talk to the Oakland Tribune?

Wilson

No, no. Come on, absolutely not, no way!

Morris

The Tribune has not been supportive of you as mayor?

Wilson

No.

Morris

Even though the publisher is now Bob Maynard?

Wilson

Even though, yes, yes, very much so, even more so. It's been even less supportive under Maynard than it was even under Bill Knowland.

We could never get that message over, and when you're trying to deal with all the other city issues, there is only so much time and energy that you have to put into it.

And I told them, I told one of the key Raider negotiators, I said, "This is going to be a real negative factor for me, but I have to go with it because I believe in it in terms of what is best for the city."

Then the second factor [that was brought up] was that it won't work, that this is some phony marketing plan that isn't going to work. But ultimately, because of those signatures that they were able to get--and here again without money, these signatures were gotten in highly questionable ways, many of the signatures. But they got the signatures and so the deal was dead because the Raiders said, nothing doing, we won't be a part of that. But then two days later--I had set up on the Tuesday night that we killed it, I had already set up a meeting for that Friday. I had switched it, I had put [city council members] Dick Spees and Aleta Cannon on it and I stepped out of it. The Raiders had indicated they were still interested in negotiating with the city and county and it took off.

And for instance, the papers made a big thing about, well, now it's different because now there are no guarantees. Half the guarantees had been taken off publicly by Davis with the first plan, and the other half, privately, he had already said, "If we get a deal, I'll take those off too," you see, so there wouldn't have been any guarantees then, either. But now that became a big thing.

I set up an advisory committee of citizens, [including] some of those people who had got the signatures, Cornell Maier who put money into getting the signatures, and John George.

Morris

Oh, you put him on the following committee, after that petition?

Wilson

Oh, yes. I put them all on that following committee.

So then they said, "Well, we want a new and independent evaluation of the marketing plan." So one of the most prestigious worldwide financial institutions was hired to do an evaluation. What did they come back with? There's no risk, minimal risk, minimal risk to the city.

But what happened is that under the first plan, yes, technically the city was taking the risk, and this is what was played up by the media. But now Al Davis realized, when they had that pre-sale, and what happened, he realized that there was no risk, he said, "Okay," when we started the discussions all over, "I'll take the risk, but you have to understand where the risk goes, that's where the money goes, the biggest part of the revenue."

See, under the first plan, the city would have gotten the best part of the revenue, because technically they were the risk-takers. But under the second plan, the new one, the one that's probably going through, Davis becomes the risk-taker. The city is eliminated as the risk-taker, and the county, so the biggest part of the money goes to Davis. You can't argue with the logic when he says, "Okay, wait a minute now, you want me to become the risk-taker? I agreed that you could have the biggest part of the funds, why, as long as you were the risk-taker. But now that I'm the risk-taker, I have to get it." And that makes sense.

Morris

Well, that sounds just like some of these deals in the business world. Amazing, amazing. I know your next appointment is waiting. Thank you very much for explaining so much about Oakland history and government.

Tape Guide

Interview 1: January 22, 1985

Interview 1: January 22, 1985
• Tape 1, Side A
• Tape 1, Side B

Interview 2: March 6, 1985

Interview 2: March 6, 1985
• Tape 2, Side A
• Tape 2, Side B
• Tape 3, Side A
• Tape 3, Side B (not recorded)

Interview 3: July 31, 1990

Interview 3: July 31, 1990
• Tape 4, Side A
• Tape 4, Side B (not recorded)

Interview 4: August 29, 1990

Interview 4: August 29, 1990
• Tape 5, Side A
• Tape 5, Side B

Notes

About this text
Courtesy of University Archives, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt0d5n97hf&brand=oac4
Title: Attorney, Judge, and Oakland Mayor
By:  Lionel Wilson, Creator, Gabrielle Morris, Interviewer
Date: 1992
Contributing Institution:  University Archives, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info
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