As California is scheduled to have the first meaningful presidential primary in 40 years, it seems prudent to look at past political developments in California. The 1961 Los Angeles Mayoral race is mostly forgotten and is used as merely a historical footnote. This is unfortunate as it was a major turning point in Los Angeles politics and a truly incredible result. While today Los Angeles is regarded as a liberal bastion, it was not always this. Los Angeles was at one time a conservative city with few notable progressives actually getting elected. In many ways it was similar to San Francisco, which also used to be a very conservative city. Minorities, the working poor, and progressives had little say. Most credit the 1973 election as the great liberal breakthrough. That was the election that saw Tom Bradley defeat Sam Yorty to become the first and only black mayor of Los Angeles (and only the second of a major U.S. city). That campaign and the preceding one are fairly well known due to the horrendous race baiting of the incumbent, Sam Yorty. However, upon closer look it was not 1973 but 1961 that saw the great liberal breakthrough and turning point in Los Angeles politics.
In order to understand the 1961 election, some background on LA politics is needed. Fletcher Bowron, who served from 1938 until 1953, came into office after the first successful mayoral recall of Frank Shaw (who was extremely corrupt, a children's candy thief, and perhaps a murderer). Bowron was a classic progressive. Bowron is largely credited for restoring clean government and for helping rid the LAPD of corruption and mafia influence. Bowron was also a champion for the poor. With the huge influx of people into Los Angeles during World War II (compounding the problems of the Depression), he saw the need to alleviate the housing shortage by promoting the development of housing projects.
Bowron's support for housing projects and populist stances drew the ire of the city's conservative business establishment. These groups wanted great civic monuments and new office headquarters. Also driving them was a fear of housing projects being planned for the neighborhoods of Chavez Ravine and Bunker Hill. Bunker Hill was located in the middle of downtown LA, adjacent to the bank district and the City Hall. Chavez Ravine was adjacent to downtown and the formerly well to do neighborhood of Angelino Heights. Although conservative business leaders wanted these neighborhoods torn down, they did not want valuable real estate being given to house the poor. They found an ideal candidate in Republican Congressman Norris Poulson. In the 1953 mayoral election, Poulson comfortably defeated Bowron by a 54%-46% margin.
Norris Poulson ushered in a new business friendly era for city government. It also ushered in a tough time for labor unions, the working poor, and minorities. Upwardly mobile blacks who tried to move out of the original South Central settlement area faced housing discrimination with numerous black families in University Park being firebombed. It was during this time period that Pacific Electric Trolley cars were being dismantled creating a large hardship for working class residents of Los Angeles without access to vehicles. In 1955, a subway line that ran under Bunker Hill and its ornate lone subway station were permanently shut down (never to reopen). LA's bus service was miserable. The original freeways built in Los Angeles tore through inner city neighborhoods forcing many people from their homes and dividing communities. Minorities faced persistent discrimination and brutality at the hands of the LAPD. Still Poulson remained popular with the business crowd and was easily reelected in 1957 with 68% of the vote.
Shortly after Poulson's reelection, plans were finalized for both CRA Redevelopment downtown and for the Dodgers to move to Los Angeles. In 1958, over 5,000 people were evicted from their homes in Chavez Ravine to make way from Dodger Stadium. Chavez Ravine was a poor Mexican American community albeit a thriving community. Bunker Hill was completely leveled to build office towers and a civic center extension including the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. This left a great deal of anger not just among those who were removed from their homes but the Latino community as Latinos had suffered greatly in the demolition of Chavez Ravine. These evictions were especially outrageous because they tore down housing but offered no replacement housing. Those who were evicted also had to watch much of the land sit vacant for many years (especially on Bunker Hill).
This link talks about a lot of downtown's history and provides excellent photos of what Bunker Hill was once like.
http://www.uncanny.net/...
Norris Poulson wished to retire in 1961 but was pushed to run for reelection by the same business interests who got him elected in the first place. By all accounts, he should have cruised to an easy reelection victory. He was popular among whites, the leading downtown business interests, and had major accomplishments under his belt including the luring of both the Laker and Dodger franchises, the expansion of LAX, and the expansion of the freeway system. Despite these advantages, Norris Poulson failed to win the 50%+1 required to win outright in the first round of the mayoral election.
Poulson, with his record of accomplishment and vision, was still set to win an easy reelection over a seemingly hapless Sam Yorty, who had come in a distant second in the first round. Yorty received no backing from the Democratic Party (Yorty had found himself a pariah within the local Democratic Party for endorsing Richard Nixon over John Kennedy in 1960). Yorty also failed to earn a single newspaper endorsement and had almost no local politicians endorse him either. He faced combined efforts from Democrats to stop him as well as the Republicans. Poulson had angered a lot of people with his policies but they were the poor and the minorites, easy to pick on because they didn't vote and had no political power. Or so he thought. On the night of May 31st, 1961 the Los Angeles political world was turned upside down with an epic upset.
Results:
Sam Yorty-D: 51.47% (276,106 votes)
Norris Poulson-R (incumbent): 48.53% (260,381 votes)
Yorty's victory is often credited to the fact that he was a Democrat in a city with a Democratic plurality and Norris Poulson's highly unpopular recycling program that required Los Angeles residents to sort wet and dry garbage. However, the winning margin for Yorty was less than 16,000 votes, far less than the combined number of people evicted from their Bunker Hill and Chavez Ravine. Although Yorty had lost the white vote, he overwhelmingly won the black and Latino vote. This permanently changed LA politics. This was the first citywide election in which black and latino votes had decided the election. There had been a long history of abuse and mistreatment towards minorities in Los Angeles. Conservative city leadership had encouraged this. However, the minorities who had been so easily picked on had the last laugh. Poulson found himself evicted from the mayoral office.
Now as mayor, Yorty did nothing for those constituencies that elected him in 1961. Rail service was completely dismantled in his first term, freeway expansion continued unabated, horrible bus service persisted, LAPD brutality persisted, minority neighborhoods were ignored by the city, minority businesses faced continued discrimination, crime worsened, rundown neighborhoods continued the trend of blight and decline, and not a single person evicted from Bunker Hill or Chavez Ravine ever got their home back. He is considered one of the worst big city mayors in the 20th century. Still, his election was an accomplishment because minorities had decided it. From that point on, all LA politicians would have to take minority communities seriously and could no longer ignore them. Although Yorty did little for the communities who voted for him, he did empower them for the future and permanently reshaped Los Angeles politics.