Willie Brown’s legacy as a vibrant and controversial political powerhouse is woven into the history of California politics, from his 30 years in the California State Assembly — 15 as speaker — to his two terms as mayor of San Francisco. And now, Brown’s footprint — in particular, as mayor from 1996 to 2004 — is the subject of a new 10-hour oral history just released by the Oral History Center at the UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library.

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‘Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, continuing his rush to hand out patronage jobs while he retains his powerful post, has given high-paying appointments to his former law associate and a former Alameda County prosecutor who is Brown’s frequent companion,’ the Los Angeles Times noted in 1994.

Two-term mayor of San Francisco, renowned speaker of the California Assembly, and widely regarded as the most influential African American politician of the late twentieth century, Willie L. Brown...

“Willie Brown is a walking repository of California political history. He’s brilliant, he’s funny and even when he’s over-the-top, you cannot deny his wisdom.” On its website, the Chronicle described Brown, a two-term mayor of San Francisco, as a “freelance journalist” and “widely regarded as the most influential” Black American politician of the late 20th Century.