This Christmas my daughter gave me an incredible gift. She had gone into the basement and dug through all the boxes and found a bunch of pictures and other things from my past adventures, wrapped them up and put them under the tree for me. One was this picture of me in my early 20’s working for Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley as his Deputy Campaign Manager in 1982.
It was a valiant campaign to become the first African American Governor in US history. Tom Bradley campaigned in every corner and every neighborhood in California.
A grandson of slaves, a son of sharecroppers he would look down at his big hands and tell people black, white and brown that when he was 7 years old and his hands were bleeding from picking cotton he “never could have dreamed of becoming Governor of California - today I am running to make that dream true for every child in California regardless of race or place — help me make the impossible dream possible.”
I had tried to get the campaign to buy a computer — but that was crazy back then — no campaign had ever done it before. But I believed in Bradley and the technology so much that I begged and borrowed and bought the DEC PDP-11 and installed it myself. We kept a database of our supporters and donors — and most regard it as the first real use of a computer inside a campaign ever. Working on the campaign was one of the great experiences of my life.
I am pretty sure this picture was taken on election night at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. It was there that Mayor Bradley hoped to give his victory speech.
I remember the words we had put to paper as if they were written today. Mayor Bradley was going to look straight into the bank of television cameras and ask the people in the ballroom to please be quiet…
“You have been important to my campaign, but right now there is someone more important that I want to talk to. To those of you watching on television — thank you for your vote — but right now there is someone more important than you that I want to talk to. Please wake up your children I want to talk to them and I will stand here and wait a few minutes while you get them…………..
“Don’t let anyone tell you that you can not become anything you want to be in this world, don’t let anyone tell you that something is impossible, stay away from the drugs, study hard, work hard, do not ask for any favors, play by the rules and dare to dream — from this day forward me and your parents and this state are going to do everything we can to give you equal opportunity and an equal chance to succeed — look at me the grandson of slaves and know that in California anything is possible. California is the place where impossible dreams can come true”
He never was able to speak those words. He would lose the election that night by roughly 1 vote per precinct — it remains the most heartbreaking loss in my over 32 years in politics.
I loved Tom Bradley, I loved his spirit and his Buddha like presence. I loved his hope and his determination.
At Mayor Bradley’s funeral Al Gore spoke these words “In many ways, Tom Bradley was the Jackie Robinson of public service — making history through his quiet dignity, his iron determination, and his ability to walk through doors that opened to his insistent knock”
As the doors of the White House open to Barack Obama how much I wish Tom Bradley had lived to see this.