Leon Williams, San Diego’s first Black city councilmember and first Black county supervisor, died this week of cardiac arrest. He was 102.
He was a teenager when the Dust Bowl descended on Oklahoma.
Eyeing picturesque postcards from his uncle, he convinced his family to trade dust for palm trees and sunsets. They moved to Bakersfield, California.
In 1941, Williams moved south to San Diego to serve in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
He arrived in a place that refused him service at restaurants and hotels, and wouldn’t sell him car insurance.
He became the first Black homeowner in his E Street neighborhood, defying the "whites-only" restriction.
He wanted to serve the city that wouldn’t serve him.
"I wanted to create more equity, more fairness and more justice, and I had an opportunity to do that. And I was watching Martin King and what was happening to those African American and other kids in the South. And I was saying, 'If they can do that, I can truly do something. I can do something here,'” Williams told KPBS in 2015.
He won the citywide election to represent District 4 in 1969.
The districts were drawn so that each councilmember represented the same number of registered voters — not population.
Because African Americans and Hispanics voted at lower rates, that meant Williams was tasked with serving a much larger population than his fellow council members, an area that stretched from downtown and Southeast San Diego neighborhoods down through San Ysidro.
In an era when Mission Valley had sprawled San Diegans apart and the 805 freeway had split communities in two, Williams was known for uniting people.
He used that knack for collaboration to revitalize downtown and create the trolley system.
Public service didn’t shield him from racial discrimination.
"While parked near Balboa Park reviewing the council agenda, he was approached by a police officer, gun drawn, who demanded to know what Williams was doing in that neighborhood," the San Diego History Center recounts.
He became San Diego’s first Black county supervisor in 1982, president of the California Associations of Counties in 1993 and board member of the National Association of Counties.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber told The San Diego Union-Tribune that Williams opened the doors with "dignity and purpose" and brought others along with him.
He helped create the Southeastern Economic Development Corporation and the Centre City Development Corporation, and chaired the Metropolitan Transit District for 13 years.
He started the local Hate Crimes Registry, and founded the county’s first human relations commission. In 2016, the San Diego Rotary Club named him "Mr. San Diego."
Lynne Carrier wrote a biography about him: "Together We Can Do More: The Leon Williams Story." He chose to celebrate the book at the same hotel that denied him service when he first arrived in the city.
Williams did all of this while living in the E Street home he purchased in 1947.
Seventy years later, the city renamed his block "Leon Williams Drive."
In 2022, the county awarded him a lifetime achievement award.
To the end, he was dreaming.
At 100 years old, he told the crowd: "Sometimes I don’t sleep, because I’m thinking about human beings, and how we could create a better society, a more respectful and appreciative society."
In a 2015 interview, KPBS’s Maureen Cavanaugh asked him: "If you had to do it again in today's climate, would you go into politics again?"
"If I were young, I would," he said, laughing.
"So you'd do it again?" she asked.
"I would do it again," he said.
