1. Interviews, Itsie Collins, San Francisco, Calif., Feb. 9, 1993; Willie Brown, San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 15, 1993, and also Assembly floor, Sacramento, Calif., July 13, 1995. Brown's physical appearance is also based on the descriptions of his relatives.

2. Willie Brown, interview, San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 15, 1993.

3. Itsie Collins, interview, San Francisco, Calif., Feb. 9, 1993.

4. Itsie Collins, interview, San Francisco, Calif., Feb. 3, 1993.

5. Ibid.

6. Alan S. Broussard, Black San Francisco: The Struggle for Racial Equality in the West, 1900-1954 , p. 30.

7. Ibid., p. 36.

8. Ibid., p. 221.

9. Richard Edward DeLeon, Left Coast City: Progressive Politics in San Francisco, 1975-1991 , p. 45.

10. See, for example, Nicholas Lemann, The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America .

11. C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya, The Black Church in the African American Experience , pp. 95, 422.

12. Broussard, Black San Francisco , p. 138.

13. Ibid., p. 166.

14. Carey McWilliams, California: The Great Exception , pp. 25, 134.

15. Ibid., pp. 9-10.

16. Broussard, Black San Francisco , p. 205.

17. Ibid., p. 205.

18. Ibid., p. 205.

19. Ibid., p. 36.

20. Memo, NAACP West Coast Region Office, May 22, 1967. Three blacks were hired as painters on the Golden Gate Bridge in March 1966. Until then there had never been a nonwhite painter on the bridge. The three were fired in March 1967 after protests by white coworkers. None got hearings on their cases or were reinstated. NAACP West Coast Region Office papers (1946-1970), Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; carton 18, file "Correspondence—Branch San Francisco Metropolitan Council March-July 1967."

21. Broussard, Black San Francisco , pp. 30-37. Broussard discusses at length the demographics and flavor of the Western Addition during this period.

22. Robert Scheer, "Mr. Speaker: The Flash," Los Angeles Times Magazine , June 23, 1991.

23. Itsie Collins, interview, San Francisco, Calif., Feb. 3, 1993.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid.

28. Willie Brown, interview, San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 15, 1993. In later years, as a lawyer, Brown represented Itsie Collins and a number of his friends when they were arrested. Itsie credited his nephew with saving him in three major cases.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid.

31. Hamilton T. Boswell, interview, Sacramento, Calif., Jan. 28, 1993.

32. San Francisco State College Announcement of Courses, 1950-55 , San Francisco State University Archives, San Francisco.

33. Obituary, Duncan V. Gillies, San Francisco Chronicle , Feb. 11, 1986.

34. Broussard, Black San Francisco , Calif., p. 187.

35. Willie Brown, interview, San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 15, 1993.

36. Willie Brown, speech, Mineola, Tex., July 9, 1993; interview, Assembly floor, Sacramento, Calif., Sep. 10, 1993.

37. Willie Brown, speech, Mineola, Tex., July 9, 1993.

38. Willie Brown, interview, San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 15, 1993.

39. Profile of Willie Brown by Jennifer Kerr, Associated Press, Mar. 25, 1984.

40. Itsie Collins, interview, San Francisco, Calif., Feb. 3, 1993.

41. Ibid.

42. Scheer, "Mr. Speaker: The Flash."

43. Charles Wheat, correspondence with the author, June 12, 1994.

44. Ibid.

45. Itsie Collins, interview, San Francisco, Calif., Feb. 3, 1993.

46. The card was found in January 1993 in the home of Minnie Collins Boyd following her death. The card was discovered by one her daughters, Gwendolyn Brown Hill, who shared it with the author.

47. Willie Brown, interview, San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 15, 1993.

48. Beth Trier, "Blanche Brown—She's Her Own Woman Now," San Francisco Chronicle , Oct. 22, 1981. This is one of the few extended interviews Blanche Brown has given.

49. Robert P. Studer, "Willie Brown: California's Brash New Speaker," Sepia , Apr. 1981.

50. Willie Brown, interviews, San Francisco, Calif., Dec. 15, 1993, and Sacramento, Calif., Apr. 24, 1993; John Burton, interview, Sacramento, Calif., Apr. 26, 1993.

51. Daryl Lembke, "The Brothers Burton," California Journal , p. 241, July 1975.

52. The Golden Gater (San Francisco State University student newspaper), Mar. 10, 1981; also John Burton, interview.

53. Interviews, Itsie Collins, Feb. 3 and 9, 1993, San Francisco. The author also talked with Collins at a political fund raiser for Willie Brown at the Fairmont Hotel in April 1993.