Silver, Carol Ruth: Dan White's district

Abstract

Carol Ruth Silver: Dan White was a candidate that included the Excelsior and Visitation Valley. Visitation Valley was a Black area with its largest population group in a very old, ugly 1950s style high rise public housing project. Terrible place, but nobody campaigned there except me because it was dangerous, and it was a very difficult place. I had campaigned there when I was campaigning for District Attorney, and I was appalled by the conditions. Anyway, that was part of Dan’s district, but the people in that portion of the district didn’t register, didn’t vote, and nobody was out there trying to get their votes. And Dan won with the votes in the Excelsior; mostly White, mostly Irish, German, and Italian immigrant families who had been living there for many years, and who were conservative. They liked Dan White. They liked him being a fireman. They liked him being a policeman. They liked his views. They didn’t like Gays. And they particularly believed in NIMBY (Not In My Backyard), and they were absolutely opposed to the siting in their district of a drug-rehabilitation project which George Moscone had proposed and wanted to locate there. Why did he want it located there? Because most of the kids who were going to be served by it were the kids of these very people who didn’t want it in their backyard because they were not ready to accept that their kids were doing drugs as well as other kids.

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Type

Interview

Date Original

2010-07-21

Relation

The Moscone oral history interviews are part of the George Moscone Collection, MSS 328.

Contributing Institution

Holt-Atherton Special Collections and Archives, University of the Pacific Library

Rights Information

To view additional information on copyright and related rights of this item, such as to purchase copies of images and/or obtain permission to publish them, click here to view the Holt-Atherton Special Collections policies.

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