TOM BRADLEY (POLITICIAN)

'Thomas J. "Tom" Bradley' (December 29, 1917 – September 29, 1998) was the mayor of Los Angeles, California from 1973 to 1993 (five terms) and only the second African American mayor of a major U.S. city. The first was Carl Stokes of Cleveland, Ohio, who was elected in 1967.
He unsuccessfully ran for Governor of California in 1982 and 1986. The racial dynamics that appeared to underly Bradley's narrow and unexpected loss in 1982 gave rise to the term "the Bradley effect".

Contents

Early life

Mayor of Los Angeles

Gubernatorial campaigns

Quotations

See also

External links

Early life

Bradley was born in Calvert near Bryan-College Station in Texas. He was the son of a sharecropper and the grandson of former slaves. By the time he attended Los Angeles Poly High School, Bradley starred in both football and track. Later he attended University of California, Los Angeles. He became a member of the Los Angeles Police Department in 1940 and became a lieutenant, the highest rank held by an African American police officer in Los Angeles at that time. While working on the force, he studied at night at Southwestern University School of Law and received his law degree. Bradley later passed the bar exam to become a lawyer.
He served on the Los Angeles City Council from 1963 to 1972, where he twice ran for mayor. In 1963, he, along with Billy G. Mills, would become the first African Americans elected to the City Council in modern times. His 10th District was centered in the multi-ethnic Crenshaw area, the majority of whose voters were white. During his tenure, he spoke out against racial segregation within the LAPD, as well as the department’s handling of the Watts Riots in 1965.
In 1969, Bradley first challenged incumbent Mayor Sam Yorty, a conservative Democrat though the election was nonpartisan. Armed with key endorsements (including the ''Los Angeles Times''), Bradley held a substantial lead over Yorty in the primary, but was a few percentage points shy of winning the race outright. However, in the runoff, to the dismay of supporters such as Abigail Folger, Yorty pulled an amazing come from behind victory to win reelection primarily because he played racial politics. Yorty questioned Bradley's credibility in fighting crime and painted a picture of Bradley, his fellow Democrat, as a threat to Los Angeles because he would supposedly open up the city to feared Black Nationalists. Bradley did not use his record as a police officer in the election. With the racial factor, even many liberal white voters became hesitant to support Bradley. It would be another four years before Bradley would successfully unseat Yorty.

Mayor of Los Angeles

During Bradley's tenure as mayor, Los Angeles hosted the 1984 Summer Olympic Games and passed Chicago to become the second most populous city in the country. The 1992 Los Angeles riots and the formation of the Christopher Commission also occurred on his watch. Tom Bradley helped contribute to the financial success of the city by helping develop the satellite business hubs at Century City and Warner Center. Bradley was a driving force behind the construction of Los Angeles' light rail network. He also pushed for expansion of Los Angeles International Airport and development of the terminals which are in use today. The Tom Bradley International Terminal is named in his honor.
Bradley served for twenty years as mayor of Los Angeles, surpassing Fletcher Bowron with the longest tenure in that office. Bradley was offered a cabinet-level position in the administration of President Jimmy Carter, which he refused. In 1984, Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale considered Bradley as a finalist for the vice presidential nomination, which eventually went to U.S. Representative Geraldine Ferraro of Queens, New York.[1]

Gubernatorial campaigns

Bradley ran for Governor of California twice, in 1982 and 1986, but lost both times to Republican George Deukmejian. He was the first African American to head a gubernatorial ticket in California.
In 1982, the election was extremely close. Bradley led in the polls going into Election Day, and in the initial hours after the polls closed, some news organizations projected him as the winner.[2] Ultimately, Bradley lost the election by 52,295 votes, less than one per cent of the 7.5 million votes cast.
These circumstances gave rise to the term the "Bradley effect" which refers to the tendency of white voters to tell interviewers or pollsters that they are undecided or likely to vote for a black candidate, but then actually vote for his opponent.[3]
In 1986, Bradley lost the governorship to Deukmejian by a margin of 61-37 percent.
Bradley died of a heart attack at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Los Angeles at age eighty in 1998. He was married to the former Ethel Arnold, and the couple had two daughters, Lorraine and Phyllis.

Quotations

★ "I’m not a black this or a black that. I’m just Tom Bradley."

See also

★ List of African Americans

★ Mayors

★ Los Angeles, California

External links

★ Tribute to Bradley with biographical information

★ Biography on Bradley

★ Southwestern University School of Law

★ Tom Bradley's IMDB profile