Together We Can Do More: The Leon Williams Story by Lynne Carrier; 2015; Lynne Carrier and Montezuma Publishing; ISBN 978-0-7442-3808-2; 223 pages including notes and index.
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – This biography of Leon Williams, who was the first African-American to serve on the San Diego City Council and scored another such first when he was elected to the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, tells of a man who was known for his ability to work with everyone while advancing the welfare of San Diegans of all races.
Carrier, a veteran journalist in San Diego, has a remarkable capacity for framing and explaining some of the major issues that faced San Diego in the last several decades of the 20th century when Williams was most active. These included unrestrained development in the northern portions of the city, to the detriment of communities with crumbling infrastructure in the south; racial tensions between minority communities and law enforcement; preserving downtown San Diego; fostering public transit, particularly during Williams’ tenure as chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Development Board; and encouragement of the political emergence of San Diego’s minority communities, including the LGBT community.
As a practiced political observer, Carrier approvingly analyzes Williams’ non-confrontational political style. Besides always acting with civility, never turning political differences into personal ones, and being willing to work incrementally toward cherished goals, Williams understood very well that people rarely are willing to change their minds, so he worked hard to give them new facts to consider so that they could make new decisions.
Of special interest to our readership is the fact that the narrative is peppered with the names of members of the Jewish community, among them: Jonas Salk; Bill Kolender; Irvin J. Kahn; Susan Golding; Lynn Schenk and Gary Shaw.
Salk’s first wife, Donna, testified in favor of continuing the funding the Citizen’s Interracial Committee supported by Williams. Kolender was a police officer with a knack for getting along with people. Williams supported him for police chief. (Much later Kolender would become the county sheriff.)
Irvin J. Kahn Co. built such developments as University City and “encouraged white residents to leave Emerald Hills—and relocate to its University City development—by pointing out that blacks were moving into their Southeastern San Diego neighborhood,” Carrier reported. “Williams couldn’t stand the block-busting marketing practices that fostered racial segregation. And he saw that this population trend was threatening the city with added social and financial burdens. It concentrated the poor in older neighborhoods, where residents’ wishes for better city and educational services often went unheard.”
Golding, in her time on the county Board of Supervisors, supported outsourcing the defense of indigent defendants in criminal cases to a non-profit organization, Community Defenders. Williams, on the other hand, believed it was wrong for the county to be employing (in the District Attorney’s office) lawyers to prosecute cases but contracting with a non-governmental entity for the defense. When Community Defenders began running up larger than anticipated expenses, however, other supervisors decided to vote with Williams to bring the Public Defender’s office in house.
Lynn Schenk, who served during Gov. Jerry Brown’s first terms of office in the 1970s as Secretary of Business, Transportation and Housing, came to Williams’ aid in his campaign to halt the planned construction of State Highway 252 which would have divided Southeast San Diego in an effort to provide another link between Interstate Highways 5 and 805. Today that stretch of land, once cleared for a freeway, includes shopping centers, homes and parks.
I’d recommend this book especially to young men and women who are considering careers in public service. Williams is a role model for people who believe that rather than being an arena for combat, politics should be a place where fine, creative, public-spirited minds work together for solutions.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com