Interview: Willie Brown
Former Mayor of San Francisco

What was it like growing up in poor, rural, segregated Mineola, Texas?

Willie Brown: It was not a pleasant experience, I can tell you that. When I graduated from high school and went away to college in 1951, that was the first time I'd ever actually left the town. So I didn't have a whole lot to compare it to, except that I knew there was a better life somewhere.

There was a better life than worrying every day about your physical safety. There was a better life than being a vegetarian, and not by choice. That there was a better life than having only a pot-bellied stove in one room in a household. There was a better life other than outdoor plumbing. There was a better life than having a job of going a block away to get water and bring it back. There was a better life than taking a bath in the third use of the water that had been acquired. I knew that there had to be a better life. And there clearly had to be a better life than having no shoes. I knew there had to be a better life.

It was a horror chamber. It got to be a little bit better, even in the horror chamber, when, at 10 or 11 years of age, I could actually produce for myself. I could work in the fields and make a couple of dollars a day. At 12 years of age, I could actually make six bucks a week shining shoes. Using those dollars, to buy the things that ordinary kids had, relieved the misery a bit, but only a tiny bit.

Who was important to you in those early years in Texas? Who inspired you, who influenced you, who did you look up to?

Willie Brown: In the early years of my life, my grandmother was the single most powerful force in existence by my little kid standards. She showed no fear of anything. In spite of the fact that we lived in a totally segregated community, she would not take anything off of white people.

They would mistreat her, or attempt to mistreat her, and she would stand up to them. She was an 80-year-old black woman and I suppose they had at least a little bit of respect for her life and the contributions she had made. I had great respect for her.

I had great, great respect for my mother. She seemed to have more interest in life than any other human being that I'd ever known, although she was only there on weekends. She lived in what we called "in service," up over somebody's garage in Dallas, Texas, working as their maid. But she would dutifully come home practically every weekend. She'd bring with her the excess food that she had cooked and not served to the other families. She'd bring home the ham, which was a way to get away from being a vegetarian. She would bring cakes and cookies that she had made. And obviously, she made them in excess, so she could bring them home. She'd also bring home the clothing of the kids from the house that she worked for, that they would give her.

So she was my treat. She also had a great interest in what we kids were doing every day, what we were doing in school. She was very inspirational, although, on reflection, she was not even a high school graduate. She was very important to me.

And then I had an uncle who literally defied description. He had had no education, never had a job, but seemingly owned everything in the world. He was a resident of San Francisco, California. He drove his car back once a year. He sent money to his mother, my grandmother, to help take of his sister's children. He had a lot of style and a lot of pizzazz about him. He was the hero of every little kid in Mineola. And of course, being my uncle, he was my hero. He also knew how to curse, and at the time that seemed important to me. There must have been a warrant out for him, or something, because he would never stay for more than three or four days, but he was very important to me.

That was probably the sum total of this little kid's collection of people. Although I did have access to things like the Houston Informer, which was a black newspaper, or the Kansas City Call, which was a black newspaper that was distributed in Mineola for five cents a copy, about once every two weeks. You would check that newspaper out and you'd read these stories about Harlem, and about black entertainers. But I couldn't really relate to them, because it just didn't seem like something I would ever be able to do. had no vision beyond Mineola. The people whom I respected and admired were pretty much restricted to my family members. I didn't have a whole lot of teachers that had anything going for them, that would warrant my admiring them.

What was your education like in that one-room schoolhouse?

Willie Brown: It was really interesting, now that I reflect upon it. The teachers, although not well qualified, gave each of those students lots of confidence. They built lots of self-esteem, and they helped equip us for competition. They made me believe that there was absolutely nothing I could not do. I still have that. I just think I may be delayed in when I do it, but I know I can do it.

It was not unrealistic. For an example, everybody had to play some sports in this little school. I chose football. Clearly, I was much too small for football. I weighed 110 pounds or something. In addition thereto, there were no rules about how long you could play football. Kids who were no longer in high school were still playing football. The quarterback on our team was a seven-year veteran. I played quarterback behind him, which means I would never play, because he was so good, and so experienced.

But they gave me the confidence. I knew that I could never do what Theodore was doing, as long as Theodore was there doing it. But for whatever reason, in all other categories they made me believe I could. So, I got something out of that nothing education, and those used textbooks.

I used to have a great pride in my ability to recite narratives, to recite entire sections of books, and stories, and poems. And it was pointed out to me on occasion -- when I was in California, long out of high school -- a girlfriend of mine pointed out that I missed a whole three stanzas of "The Ancient Mariner." And I said, "Oh no, I did not. I know it verbatim." She said, "No, you missed three stanzas. I want to show you." She showed me the book, and then I realized that there was obviously a page missing in the book that I had committed to memory, where I got it. And so from that point on, I've never again recited any poetry, any narratives, for fear that my training in the text room materials that I had available to me may have created a gap, which means I would sound like I really didn't know what I was talking about.

So I dropped it. I know "If" backwards and forwards, but you never hear me doing it. I know "The Signifying Monkey" backwards and forwards, but you never hear me doing it, because I fear that I may miss some stanzas, by virtue of the fact that they were not there.

But being forced by these teachers to commit all of this to memory, gave me the confidence that I can take text material and at least regurgitate what I've read, just by virtue of the memory training that I went through.

I took geometry from my coach in high school. Charles Gregory knew nothing about mathematics. He knew even less about the geometry part of mathematics. And he said up front, "I didn't want to teach this class. They don't have anybody else to teach it. I need the job. I'm your coach, there's not much else I can do for you except to tell you, commit the geometry book to memory." And I did. I got an "A" in geometry, only for having committed the book to memory. Can I solve geometrical problems? Absolutely not. Can I quote Theory 109? Absolutely. But the memory training that Gregory gave me equipped me in my world of law. I can literally cite you, chapter and verse, subject matter that I was required to take as a freshman in law school, almost 40 years ago. Only because of that training that I got in that little school.

It was a horrible little segregated school. It was not a second level education, it was a fourth or fifth level education, but there were pieces of it that represent lifelong building blocks for everything that I've done. Self-esteem, personal confidence in what I can do, a sense of optimism about problem solving, and memory training, is what I carry with me from that educational experience.

What books inspired you?

Willie Brown: All literature. In my early years I was a prolific reader of every subject matter, of every story. It was one way I survived the horror of living in a segregated community like Mineola. There, in those books, were my dreams, my Walter Mitty life. I still find myself daydreaming about being a part of some text. I've gotten away from the reading that I used to do, and I'm sorry I have. Vision and age sometimes dictate another set of circumstances. But I read and loved everything I could get my hands on, trash and otherwise.

Were there values and experiences you brought with you from Texas that helped you when you got to got to college, and when you entered politics?

Willie Brown: I think so.

I think that moving into adulthood at 11 or 12 years of age, self-sufficiency, independence, decision making in a responsible fashion, never allowed to be a flake, or never tolerated to be a flake, all constitute qualities that have been of immeasurable value in every aspect of my life. Just the discipline of being able to set your time when you went to school, when you did your homework, when you did the work you had to do, your household chores. And you always had those, every kid in my household was assigned those, and every kid that I knew in the community. Plus the fact that you had to help produce that which sustained the family, and you could not be selfish.

Part of that six bucks I made went to help take care of my brothers and sisters who did not have a job. The ability that I had to develop of getting along with adults in a segregated world, all of that has stood me in great stead.

The thing that I marvel about in my situation is that by all rights I should really hate white people for the kind of treatment that I received. But there, at this stage of my life, and probably for the last 40 years, I can't even conjure up how horrible it really was. So there's no way for me really to describe it. And I carry no residual displeasures towards any race of people. I think the experience that I had there made me a more tolerant person than I ordinarily would have been.

How did you decide to go to college and become a lawyer?

Willie Brown: I actually went off to college to become a math teacher. I was determined that never again would a Charles Gregory be burdened with having to teach black kids, my friends, my relatives, from the perspective of a coach.

In part, I was motivated because I'd gotten such great grades in math, not realizing that I really didn't have the skills. Frank Crawford was number one, I was number two in the class. I picked up a couple of "Bs" in deportment. That separated us. Otherwise, we were both straight-A students. Math was our strong suit. We scored 100 on every paper involving math. This math teacher, my coach, had so inspired me, that I was coming back to teach math. I also knew that I could get a job doing that.

Once I got to California however, at the behest of my uncle, I tried to enter Stanford University and could not, because I didn't have the grades, nor the previous academic exposure, nor the money. I entered San Francisco State and, almost instantly, all of that altered and I became more interested in philosophy, logic and political science.

I had rejected the ROTC, and when I was about to graduate, in order to avoid instant induction into military service, I had to go to graduate school and get an exemption. That's how I entered law school. I didn't start out to be a lawyer. I didn't leave Mineola headed for law. I didn't leave Mineola headed for graduate school.

I was going to go to college so that I didn't have to work at the pea house all of my life. That's a pea processing plant, and it was the only job that I'd ever witnessed any adults in Mineola really having, unless you worked on the railroad, which is what my father did. You didn't have any other jobs. You couldn't even be anybody's chauffeur. The town was so poor that the white people didn't even have chauffeurs, as such. So, there was nothing there that would inspire you to want to pursue it. The undertaker seemed to be okay, but the undertaker also had another job, I think he was a lawn mower, or something. So there was not enough people dying to even want you to be an undertaker. But teachers got paid. They got paid a lot less than the white teachers, but they got paid. And they worked nine months out of the year.

Most of the teachers didn't live in Mineola, and most of the teachers had cars, and they had the nice houses when they did live in Mineola. All of that said to me that if I couldn't be my uncle, then I was going to be my teacher.

I loved literature. I loved the theatrical side of that. I acted in all the plays, but all of the kids were doing that pretty effectively. You could only have one or two English teachers, or Lit teachers. I wasn't going to be a Home Ec teacher. There was no science department as such, so math was the only other subject. I was obviously not good enough in athletics to want to become a coach. So by default, math became my tool. But by the time I was though my first semester at San Francisco State University, I knew that my verbal skills would ultimately be my ticket, either in the world of broadcasting, or in something other than that. Law came as an afterthought.

When did you know what you wanted to do with your life? Was there a defining moment?

Willie Brown: Not that I can point to. I really don't recall the turns that I took and why. In most cases my turns in the road were not planned, they were me taking advantage of the circumstances that presented themselves with the most optimum prospects. Long range planning for me was, "Where do I eat dinner?"

What kind of a kid were you? Did you get along with your classmates?

Willie Brown: I got along really well with my classmates. All of the after-school activities centered around the house in which I lived. We played football on the street in front of my house. I built a high-jump and pole-vaulting pit on one side of my house, the only pole-vaulting pit the kids had ever seen.

I had three sisters that were the attractive girls around that little town. They had lots of friends and lots of boys hung out there. My family were bootleggers. I didn't realize that was also an attraction.

Before she had her heart trouble, my grandmother owned the only night spot in the town, The Shack. One of my uncles ran that for her, and bootlegged the booze. So, my house was kind of the center of that little town's after-school activities.

We had the only piano that any family had, because it had come out of The Shack. My sisters all played piano. One of my sisters was an accomplished singer, she was ultimately dubbed, the Songbird of Texas. With that collection of attractive people, my family appeared to have a little more resources than some of the other families. There was nobody in my family that worked except me, later on. My grandmother was too old to work. My mother worked in another town, so there was no visible working person. The father had left the family long before I ever knew him, so there was no male involvement.

My grandmother was pretty much the pillar of that community. Everybody knew her. She was not a church lady. The church people resented the fact that she did not go to church under any circumstances, because of that honky-tonk that she ran, and the bootlegging. I didn't understand all of that as a little kid, but on reflection I know that my family was what you call an on-the-edge family.

My grandmother clearly had a relationship with the hired sheriff. Because she was never raided, she was never busted, or anything else. She could always fix it if somebody else had a problem with the law. I benefited from all of that, because everybody zeroed in on Mamma Anna Lee. If they had a problem, they checked in with her.

My uncle was such a playboy in those days that he had children by women around the town, and when my uncle would come to town, they'd come to visit. I benefited handsomely from being the kid with the only football, the kid with the only baseball. Nobody had a baseball glove. I was also probably more inept at all of that than any of the other kids.

When you started your law career did you have any idea what you wanted to do?

Willie Brown: By the time I entered the practice of law I had been involved in politics for eight or nine years. From the second semester in college I had become part of the political scene on campus. We had started a protest operation over some student lockers, or something. That had grown into a college-based community political movement. We elected the first black president of the student body.

Nobody lived on campus. It was a streetcar college, there were no dormitories. The average age was about 23 and I was 17, so that was a great gap. There were lots of returning veterans who were living off the GI Bill and were in pretty good shape financially.

Very few high school graduates went directly to this school. It was a wonderful learning experience for this kid, who had a little bit of smarts, helping out these old guys who had been out of high school a long time. These friendships developed, but they were also sensitive to the issues of adult governance and independence. That school treated them as if they were all still 17. That started the political process.

By 1952 I had begun my involvement with the NAACP Youth Council. That heightened my interest in politics, as well. I became involved in organized politics through the Young Democrats on campus. By 1956, in that campaign involving Estes Kefauver, I was a member of the Young Democrats statewide. I was friendly with the Burtons, who were a legendary political family in San Francisco. I knew the arguments between the liberals and the conservatives in San Francisco. So by the time I got out of law school in '58 I was already immersed in the world of politics.

Were you already thinking about running for office?

Willie Brown: No, not really thinking about running for office, but knowing that I was going to participate in politics. The running for office started in 1960, when I ran for the Democratic County Central Committee, on a ticket put together by Phil Burton. He needed a black on the ticket and I was the only young black lawyer around at that time. He needed an Asian on the ticket, he needed an old person on the ticket, he needed a labor person on the ticket, and he needed a left-winger.

So, a Hallinan, Willie Brown, and some old person, all became a part of this thing. Of that group, I got elected to the County Central Committee, and I immediately became involved in who should be the chair of that committee. I think we lost that fight by one or two votes, because the old entrenched Democrats still controlled more votes than Burton controlled, but I had my taste of the war, at that time. At that moment, I knew that electoral politics were an avenue that I should consider.

Who gave you the help you needed to start a political career?

Willie Brown: Phil Burton would have to be credited, from the standpoint of my elected political career. He was the first person with any substance to step to the plate and offer assistance, and offer resources. He took a considerable political risk, because I ran against a Democratic incumbent, a person who was almost his seatmate in the halls of the legislature. He backed my candidacy on the basis that we needed to expand representation. We particularly needed to expand representation for African-Americans in the California legislature. I'd have to credit Phil with being the person who gave me the first break.

What do you think he saw in you that made him say, Willie Brown's the guy to do this?

Willie Brown: I was probably the only guy around. I was a 23 year-old lawyer. I had a family, a wife and a child. I had not yet been to jail for anything. I had a civil rights background by then, having come through the ranks of the NAACP. I had a black middle-class background, in that I had been a fraternity member, so I had that network. I was a youth director of my church, where I had 50 or 60 young adults and teenagers under my jurisdiction.

So I was everybody's fair-haired boy. I had been anointed to be the next young phenom in the African-American community in San Francisco. Too few had gone on to graduate school. Too few had chosen a profession where they had some high visibility.

Then I stumbled upon a protest. I led the first protest against housing discrimination in San Francisco. That resulted in nationwide attention, because it was a northern -- or in this case a western -- liberal city, having its soul exposed for racism.

It was all by accident that this incident occurred. Lo and behold, a combination of all those factors moved the name Willie Brown ahead of everybody else's. Phil Burton, being the smart political guy that he was, and knowing that he needed an anchor tenant in the black community to become a part of his coalition, literally said, "This is what you must do."

What happened the first time you ran for the state assembly?

Willie Brown: I lost. In 1962 I had Phil Burton, Carlton Goodlett, the owner of the local black newspaper, and a few members of the black clergy supported my candidacy. It was fun to run a campaign, but it was all without any resources, with almost nothing. But we came within a thousand votes of defeating a 22-year incumbent who was heavily financed. We had no money.

The one shortcoming Phil Burton was always plagued with was he could not raise a nickel. He was so offensive to most people in his bombastic style, that he could only get money from the labor organizations. This person whom I was running against happened to have been a member of the labor hierarchy. He had been a painter, and ran a paperhanging operation, so he was really labor's fair-haired boy. He was the chairman, I think, of the labor committee. So we had no resources from organized labor.

So we lost, but not badly. In the process of losing, however, I learned a valuable lesson. I learned that there were people beyond Burton who could be of assistance to me. One of them was a woman named Marian Conrad, a Pacific Heights matron who was in PR. She didn't need to be in PR, her husband was a Tenneco land executive, but she became fascinated with this young black politician.

She introduced me to a whole series of people, one of whom was Herb Caen, the noted San Francisco columnist. He began to take me around with him, introducing me to his San Francisco. He had never bumped into anybody that he thought had the energy or the interest, or was as comprehensive in my appetite as he was, for hamburgers and for all the other things.

That friendship blossomed into a favorable mention in his column, which most people would have paid dearly to get. It came almost naturally for me, by virtue of that exposure. So by 1964 it was a foregone conclusion that I would be an elected official. The question was just "When?"

I'd also honed my debating skills. I had begun to understand the issues. I had begun to understand direct communications with people. I had attracted a very skilled campaign operation headed by a guy named Rudolph Nothenberg.

I'd also gotten some major support from an organized political operation in the state that Alan Cranston headed called CDC. That was a left-wing organization that thought you ought to admit Red China to the UN, and all that business. And a group of kids that ran the W.E.B. DuBois Club, which was a left-wing club, mainly headed by the kids who were the offspring of ILWU (International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union) members. So by '64, the infrastructure for a successful political campaign was there, and we won handsomely.

And you haven't lost since.

Willie Brown: Never lost another election in my life.

Many people have brains, talent, even opportunity, but they don't achieve what you have. Why do you think you have succeeded?

Willie Brown: I think circumstances in the world of politics contribute substantially to whether or not you can be successful. You can be the most talented person around. You can be the most attractive person around. But the circumstances may not be there for you to be successful, because the public still ultimately determines what happens to you politically, by virtue of the casting of their vote. And you cannot ever predict what will move the public in one direction or another.

We politicians do focus groups, and surveys, and telephone persuasion, but believe me, people make up their minds on quirks. They make up their minds many times on things unrelated to anything that you have said or, in fact, done.

How would you explain to someone why what you do is so exciting and so important to you?

Willie Brown: First, it's really important to me because it's the career that I've chosen, and you want to do well in whatever career option you may exercise. But even more important than that...

The excitement comes from the joy you see on other's faces when they react to your having solved a problem for them, or responded to their needs. It's almost as if magic has occurred in their lives. And that, more than anything else, re-energizes and causes you to want to re-up for a lot more than you currently do, or you're capable of doing. And in many cases, you don't really solve the problem, what you do is you give them hope that together you can work it out. And that little thread is the source of my energy and the source of my interest, and probably the source of my excitement.

Did you start out with an agenda? Did you have a plan for how you wanted to change the world?

Willie Brown: I wanted to do certain things, but you run into situations in your law practice that really constitute an injustice. For example, the first client I ever represented was a hooker. My office was in the Fillmore, which was a black section of town, where there was no such thing as corporate law, or mergers and acquisitions. None of that was available to me. You took whatever came through the door.

The first person that came through the door was this hooker, and she was livid that she was being arrested again. And these guys she was doing business with were not being arrested, they were being marched in to testify against her, and she thought it was unfair, because they were doing the same thing she was doing. And I said, "You're absolutely right."

Suddenly, for me, it was a constitutional issue. Of course, I got slapped down at every turn because the system says, "You don't touch the respectables. You only go after the people who are not so respectable." All of a sudden, I'm in a situation where I have a cause. I believe that whether you're a criminal, or you're not a criminal, you're entitled to the same rules and regulations. And we virtually changed that in San Francisco.

I started getting cases dismissed on the basis of selective prosecution. One of the first times anybody ever used that, I think. And that was very exciting for me, and it was one of the steps that I could tell you that turned what was my job into a magical set of circumstances. Because the word spread throughout the hooker community: "There's a guy down there on Sutter Street who has come up with something that keeps us out of jail. Gets our cases dismissed." And it was fun to watch the delight on these peoples' faces, particularly when they could pay you a hundred bucks in cash, offer you something in trade, in return for having represented them. It was like magic, and I loved it.

What setbacks have you suffered?

Willie Brown: I lost the first election, as you know, in 1962. That didn't disturb me, it was just a momentary blip on my screen. I went back and I won. I lost the first race for Speaker in 1974, but that didn't deter me. I just retooled, went back and put together an odd combination of 23 Democrats and 28 Republicans to elect me to the speakership several years later.

Those were probably the only political career bumps that I have had. I've had some bumps on the personal side. I have been stiffed on good cases, lots and lots of times. Some of those times that I was stiffed I had literally encumbered the fee for life sustaining purposes, which constituted a bit of a financial disaster for me.

But beyond that, there have really not been any significant career downsides, because I have been very careful to orchestrated and structure the situation where I minimize the potential for those failures. I think you have to do that in your exercising of career options. You should be realistic. You should be kind of like a cat. You've never seen a cat attempt a jump or crawl, or anything else that that cat isn't almost certain he or she can achieve. I think if I came back as an animal, I'd probably be a cat.

Did you every have any fear of failure?

Willie Brown: I think all of us should have self-doubts. I don't think you can succeed unless you know that there's a challenge that forces you to reach way down and really overcome.

You have to be practical too in that regard, by the way. Because if not, you will be fooling yourself. I did not fool myself. I knew I was never going to play first string quarterback as long as Theodore existed. As a matter of fact, I came to the conclusion I was never going to play in a game as long as Theodore existed. And I adjusted my sights accordingly.

In career options, you'd better be prepared to make your sights realistic with what are real possibilities, rather than a wish list of non-achievable things. I am never going to be Michael Jordan, that is a guaranteed no-no. I don't have the physical properties, etc. So to think I'm going to be a great basketball player, as my friend Billy Crystal or Spike Lee said he wanted to be at one time, is crazy. That's a little bit nutty to pursue it in that fashion. Can I be president? Of course.

How do you deal with criticism?

Willie Brown: Criticism -- particularly that which comes from the public press -- can terrorize you, can make your life miserable. Particularly if you live on acceptance. If every day of your life you want to be loved in this business, you'd better quit the business. Or you'd better hire a legion of therapists to keep you sane, because you are guaranteed to displease 49.9 percent of the people on any given day.

Hopefully, never more than 50.1, but 49.9 percent on a given day. Sometimes it's just a few, on a committee. Sometimes it's more than a few, in a group or organization. Many times it's lots of your constituency, and you are going to be criticized.

You're going to be vilified. You're going to be accused of every high crime and low misdemeanor there is. Your sanity is going to be questioned. Your integrity -- to its soul -- is going to be questioned. Your just unadulterated honesty is going to be questioned. And if you let any of that interfere with you, if you let that define who you are, you should get out of this business. I don't let anybody define who Willie Brown is, except Willie Brown. I stopped speaking in the third person a long time ago, but to make this point, I'd have to do it that way. No one defines me for me. I've got the self-confidence that what I do and how I do it is consistent with what's in the best public interest. All I have to do is sell it. And so far I've been able to do that. That's my shield.

In the mayor's campaign, the newspapers, in my home town were against me. Every Sunday, these guys were not just against me, these guys were actively trying to defeat me. They were using their daily ink sheet to take everything that I had done for the last 31 years and interpret it from a selfish standpoint, or a greed standpoint.

They couldn't make the case, because I don't own anything. They couldn't make the case because I've been inspected in every fashion, but that didn't stop them. They wrote more fiction than Robert Ludlum writes in any of what he does, or that Mr. Stine writes in any of what he does. They should have gotten the fiction award of the year. But there was just enough factual support, unrelated to their conclusions, to give them credibility, and for them, the clear conscience of journalistic honesty.

It got so bad that I wouldn't read the Sunday paper, because there was always a front page story about Willie Brown, with a box showing how he voted 30 years ago, etc., etc., etc. And some of that stuff should stick to you, but I had determined at the outset of my campaign that I was going to shake the hands of every voter in San Francisco. That I was going to look every voter in the eye in San Francisco. And that I was going to market Willie Brown directly to the voter, thereby shielding any definition that anyone else would attempt to impose upon me. And I did that, it stood me in great stead. And I still don't read the Sunday paper.

What personal characteristics do you think are most important for success?

Willie Brown: I believe in a well-rounded education, the most comprehensive, every subject matter. Those that you're personally interested in and those that you're not, you ought to have some exposure to them. You ought to master the lingo of that subject matter, and you should be curious enough to continue that process by reading everything you can get your hands on connected with it.

Anybody who reads the daily newspaper, for an example, and only reads the sections of their interest is doing themselves a disservice. You ought to read the travel section, the home section, the business section, the want ads, you ought to be interested enough. And that will constitute the foundation of success in whatever field in which you go. That will constitute the opportunity for a quality of life that will be very, very rewarding. So, the basic education, as comprehensive as it is humanly possible for you to achieve, is what will be the foundation for your success in any respective category.

That's quality number one. Quality number two: You have to make a choice on what you want to do at any given moment. That is not to say you have to stick with it for the rest of your life, but you've got to make a choice. Running all over the place on any given day, or any given week or measured time period, will cause you ultimately to want to rest. And when you stop to rest it will be because you didn't complete any of the projects.

Believe me, rest comes almost automatically on the completion of a project. You complete the project and you're totally re-energized, because you no longer have to think about it, you don't have to devote any time to it, or any energy. It just reinvents your life, it reinvents you. So, focusing on a project or an object and completing it becomes, in my opinion, the second quality.

The third, and maybe even equal to the first two, is the ability to communicate. No matter what you're doing, you've got to be able to communicate. Communicating is marketing, communicating is selling, communicating is doing all those things. But you've got to do it, you've got to be able to. Whether you're a Bill Gates, or Herschel Walker, or Sam Donaldson, or Bill Clinton, you absolutely have to communicate.

The world will never know and never appreciate who you are if all they see is the silence of one who appears to be selfish in his or her endeavor. So if I had to say generally what goes into the makeup of a successful human being, those are the characteristics you will find most common among all.

What do you know now about achievement that you didn't know when you were younger?

Willie Brown: Almost everything I know about achievement now I did not know when I was younger. Remember, my exposure was so limited. Unlike the kids of today, I didn't have counselors who interpreted the things that other personalities had done in order to be successful. So practically everything that I know about the foundations for success I have learned subsequently to my 17 years in Mineola.

What idea most captures your attention these days?

Willie Brown: Trying to sell the idea of public service in some capacity to the young. And by young, I don't mean the 17s and the 18s, or the 14s and the 15s, I'm talking all the way down. That fascinates and drives me more than anything else. That's where my interest happens to be.

What are the biggest challenges we face in the next century?

Willie Brown: The biggest challenges we're facing is how to deal with poverty in the world. If we don't figure out some way that people can maintain themselves in this enormously wealthy world, if they can't acquire the bare necessities of life, I think we're in for the destruction of life as we know it.

I don't think that we can only have the have-nots move to protect the environment from total exploitation by mankind. I think we have to have the lowest non-wage earner in India, or in Rwanda just as interested in recycling in their own sphere as someone in Manhattan, or in Miami Beach, or in Newport Beach, or in Marin County. Got to be just as interested. Currently, only the residents of those areas evidence that interest. The world is slowly but surely slipping into the brink of disaster, environmentally speaking. And it's because we have not dealt with the basic issue of human survival. And until we do that we're in trouble.

Is there anything you would like to do that you haven't done yet?

Willie Brown: There are lots of things that I want to do personally that I haven't done. I still have not mastered that quarterbacking stuff that I talked about. I still don't have the courage to do the downhill racing that my son does in places like Sun Valley, or up at Ketchum. I still don't have full appreciation of how one flies. I'm sure the list I'm giving you is shared by lots of people. Those are things you really want to do, but on my professional side, I am in fact doing those things which I want to do the most.

What's your advice to young people who are just starting out?

Willie Brown: My advice to young people who are just starting out is that if they don't have anything else going for them, they can take my life and know that anybody can achieve. If that puts hope and optimism in them, then I've done my job, and I'll be proud of that.

They can literally take my life and my circumstance, from age eight to wherever I happen to be now, and know that whatever barrier is there for them, they start with a greater exposure to knowledge. They start with a world more open to affording them assistance. They start with the world in greater need than was the case when Willie Brown first started out.

They start with the world which will pride itself on tolerance, versus acknowledged intolerance. I carefully said, "acknowledged intolerance." Intolerance is still there, probably in the same abundant supply it was in '51, when I first moved from Texas to California. But nevertheless, the denial of that and the desire to evidence tolerance is even greater.

I believe that youngsters have a better opportunity than I ever had in using me as a measure of success, what a lack of opportunity can ultimately produce. It seems to me, it ought to be inspirational.

How do you teach people about compromise?

Willie Brown: First and foremost, if you're ever going to build a consensus, if you're ever going to be the center of the compromise, you've got to be prepared to listen.

Listening is an art that most people do not possess. Most of us talk. And when we finish talking, we start thinking what we're going to say next. In interviews, I hate to be interviewed where the person interviewing me never listens to what I'm saying. They simply have a fixed agenda, and they're going to get through that agenda no matter what. Now, the agenda may not be relevant to anything that I've said in each subsequent question, but nevertheless, they stay with the agenda, so they're not listening. It takes greater skills to listen than it does to speak.

Once you develop the skills of listening, and people believe you're listening, they will listen to you. It gives you then the license to begin to build the compromise.

There must be a perception, if you are to build a compromise, that you do have some smarts. There's never been a person who's been the mediator, or the negotiator, or the person who orchestrated the solution, who was not perceived as being pretty smart, well informed on the issues.

It goes back to the question of education. You've got to be credentialed. People do not listen to non-credentialed persons. It's a rare occasion when people will listen substantively to someone who doesn't have society's measurements of achievement. They may be artificial, but they are measurements of achievement.

There are some people who credential themselves and develop a whole group of followers, because they have some natural skills at listening. It goes back to the perception, and the perception tends to be reality. If you're credentialed, and you're perceived as smart, and you also have the unique talent to listen, you are literally designated to become the person who helps frame the solution.

Is there a book you would choose to read to your grandchildren, or to a young person, that would be important?

Willie Brown: Yes, I think there is one. I don't know at what age, or at what level of intellectual development I would recommend it, but I still read it with some regularly.

If you're going into the trade or the business I'm in, Machiavelli is the bible. And you'd better read it, and you'd better reread it. The wisdom contained in that book, for the nature of the public policy options that I exercise, and the techniques that are employed, and the assessment of your competition, stands you in good stead. I would recommend that to be read over, and over, and over, until death.

What does the American Dream mean to you?

Willie Brown: The American Dream for me means providing an opportunity for every single, solitary person to be whatever they wish to be, at whatever level they wish to be, without any artificial barriers imposed, because of the nature of their birth, their sex, or gender, their sexual orientation, their location, their accent, or any of the other artificial things that are associated with categorizing people.

Mr. Mayor, it's been my privilege. Thank you.

Thank you.