Williams, Cecil: Moscone and his grass roots constituency

Cecil Williams

Abstract

Williams: George Moscone, when he began to become the person who was seeking to become the mayor of the city, there was no doubt about it, as I fore-stated, you can tell that he was inclusive. Because of the way that he carried himself and the way that he looked. And lets never forget the way George looked. George was handsome and he was smart, you could tell it, you know. And he was energetic and he was committed. But he committed himself to grass-roots people. All of us, all of us who were waiting for something to happen and wanted to do something and it was not so difficult to get us, frankly speaking, involved. I remember when George came to the Tenderloin, I’m not sure if it was his first, second, or whatever time it was, but I remember George coming to the Tenderloin and we were thrilled. That the possible mayor was going to come to our section of the town. He found this section of the town like every other section because he was a San Francisco boy. He grew up here, he knew the pulse beat of San Francisco, and he knew also that there were people that were still left on the outside. So all of a sudden, George began to, in organizing his effort to run for mayor, he reached much further than almost any other politician that we had ever had. And I remember most of them, George Christopher on up. But George Moscone was the kind of person who included people because George wanted first and foremost to let people know that he was genuinely concerned about them and what they were facing. The campaign was built in that direction and I was so pleased that he came here. That he honored us in one sense. Because nobody else, no other mayor had been here. But when George came here, that was it. We knew then that either we were going to win or we were going to do something to make sure that George would never forget that we had a difficult race to engage in.

Loading...

Media is loading
 

Type

Interview

Date Original

2011-06-15

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,

Share

COinS