Gilbert W. Lindsay
Encyclopedia
Gilbert W. Lindsay also known as Gil Lindsay, was a Los Angeles, California, politician who worked his way up from City Hall janitor to become the city's first black City Council member and one of its most powerful elected officials. He helped fashion downtown Los Angeles into a major metropolitan center but was accused of turning his back on the people in his district who elected him to 27 years on the city's governing body (1963–1990).
, where he worked in the cotton fields as a youth. He left Mississippi as a teen and enrolled in a school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
. He then moved to Arizona, where he joined the Army and served in the 10th Cavalry and the 25th Infantry. As part of an Army program, he attended studied business administration at the University of Arizona
. He moved to Los Angeles in 1923 or 1924 and found a job as a City Hall
janitor with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
. He took a civil service exam for a clerkship, and he was given a basement office because, he said, his superiors did not want him to sit with whites. He took classes in governmental administration and political science
at the University of Southern California and in business administration at UCLA during the 25 years he worked for the department.
About his years as a janitor, the Los Angeles Times quoted him as saying, "I used to scrub toilets for the city of Los Angeles with a mop—that was my job. . . I had the lowest job you can give a human being." but the Los Angeles Sentinel, a black-oriented newspaper, cited C.A. (Bob) Barker, a Los Angeles businessman, as saying, "He was a helluva janitor! That was an important job for Negroes at that time. He gave the janitor's job the same respect he gave the council position. Whatever Gil was doing was very important to him."
He was known as being a short man, standing five feet, three inches tall.
Lindsay's wife, Theresa, was from Greenville, Texas
. It was said that Lindsay "began to decline mentally and physically" after Theresa died in 1984; they had been married 49 years. He had a son, Melvin; a daughter, Sylvia Thornton, a stepson, Herbert Howard, and an adopted daughter, Christina Willoughby.
said that Lindsay had "deteriorated to the point where he was incapable of doing his job." Lindsay was sent to a hospital again when, in the midst of the excitement occasioned by a planned visit to City Hall by South African anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela
, he forgot to take his diabetes medicine and collapsed.
He was brought to a hospital in Inglewood, California
, where he remained until his fellow City Council members talked about removing him from his Council seat because he had been outside the Los Angeles city limits for more than 90 days. He was then transferred to "another facility within Los Angeles city limits to make him less vulnerable to efforts to unseat him."
By then in his 28th year as a City Council member, Lindsay died in a Hollywood hospital December 28, 1990, "as a result of a long illness which began with a severe stroke in early September that left him paralyzed on the right side and unable to speak and, at the end, was complicated by a heart attack." A funeral service was held at Victory Baptist Church, and he was buried in Evergreen Cemetery. Lindsay was a member of People's Baptist Church.
from 1953 to 1958 and was also an NAACP vice president. He was tapped by City Council candidate Kenneth Hahn
as his aide to turn out the Negro vote. Hahn won and when he later became a county supervisor he appointed Lindsay as a field deputy, a job that Lindsay held for ten years, until 1963.
Lindsay became Los Angeles's first black council member at the age of 62 when, with the backing of the political Hahn brothers—Gordon
and Kenneth
—he was appointed to a vacant 9th District Council seat in January 1963 after Ed Roybal won election to Congress. He won election in his own right later in the year and was reelected to eight successive terms. As the years passed, he proclaimed himself the "Emperor of the Great 9th District." Lindsay's term of of 27 years was surpassed only by those of John S. Gibson, Jr.
(30 years), Marvin Braude
, 31 years, Ernani Bernardi
(32 years) and John Ferraro
(35 years).
and neglected the neighborhoods." He was often criticized for supporting Downtown "at the expense of the southern portion of his district." But City News Service writer Cathy Franklin said of him: "During his nearly three decades in office, the downtown area exploded into one of the premier business centers of the world."
Blue lights. Lindsay clashed "in a bitter personal exchange" with Councilman Ernani Bernardi when the latter introduced a resolution aimed at removing the blue lights that Lindsay had had installed on the rear of his city automobile. Lindsay later agreed to remove the lights but said: "The thing that disturbs me is that my colleagues equivocate over frivolous motions that amount to nothing. They gag at a gnat and swallow a camel."
Morals. The 9th District councilman opined that San Fernando Valley
communities would "not be having problems with topless-bottomless bars if moral levels matched those" of his Downtown Los Angeles
and South L.A.
district. "We have clean-minded people and a clean district," he said. "All this junk is out there where the affluent aristocrats, the holier-than-thou people live."
Council members. Interviewed by Los Angeles Times reporter Janet Clayton for an article about relationships among City Council members, Lindsay noted in 1984 that "All the council members get along fine when they need a vote. Otherwise, they can't stand each other, or I should say, don't genuinely like each other. They each have their own agenda, you know." He said he has a "simple formula" fr deciding issues: "When I give my word on a vote, I haven't reneged, least not more than a half dozen times in 20 years. I vote my district, then my friends, and, what's good for me."
Skid Row. The Times noted that Lindsay, "whose district includes Skid Row, has always favored upscale commercial and residential development in the area, the last big undeveloped stretch of downtown Los Angeles." In 1987 the councilman, along with a group of business owners objected to putting more residential and treatment centers in Skid Row on the grounds they were "drawing the homeless, including the mentally ill" to an area that had "great potential for commercial growth."
jury ruled that Juanda Chauncie, Lindsay's 40-year-old girlfriend, had taken advantage of the councilman to gain control of his money and property. The five-woman, seven-man panel ruled that Chauncie had used undue influence over him and awarded $235,000 to Lindsay's stepson and estate. Attorney Johnnie Cochran
's firm represented the estate.
Biography
Gilbert William Lindsay, an African-American, was born on November 29, 1900, in MississippiMississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
, where he worked in the cotton fields as a youth. He left Mississippi as a teen and enrolled in a school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
. He then moved to Arizona, where he joined the Army and served in the 10th Cavalry and the 25th Infantry. As part of an Army program, he attended studied business administration at the University of Arizona
University of Arizona
The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
. He moved to Los Angeles in 1923 or 1924 and found a job as a City Hall
Los Angeles City Hall
Los Angeles City Hall, completed 1928, is the center of the government of the city of Los Angeles, California, and houses the mayor's office and the meeting chambers and offices of the Los Angeles City Council...
janitor with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is the largest municipal utility in the United States, serving over four million residents. It was founded in 1902 to supply water and electricity to residents and businesses in Los Angeles and surrounding communities...
. He took a civil service exam for a clerkship, and he was given a basement office because, he said, his superiors did not want him to sit with whites. He took classes in governmental administration and political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
at the University of Southern California and in business administration at UCLA during the 25 years he worked for the department.
About his years as a janitor, the Los Angeles Times quoted him as saying, "I used to scrub toilets for the city of Los Angeles with a mop—that was my job. . . I had the lowest job you can give a human being." but the Los Angeles Sentinel, a black-oriented newspaper, cited C.A. (Bob) Barker, a Los Angeles businessman, as saying, "He was a helluva janitor! That was an important job for Negroes at that time. He gave the janitor's job the same respect he gave the council position. Whatever Gil was doing was very important to him."
He was known as being a short man, standing five feet, three inches tall.
Lindsay's wife, Theresa, was from Greenville, Texas
Greenville, Texas
Greenville is the county seat, and the largest city, of Hunt County, Texas, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 25,557....
. It was said that Lindsay "began to decline mentally and physically" after Theresa died in 1984; they had been married 49 years. He had a son, Melvin; a daughter, Sylvia Thornton, a stepson, Herbert Howard, and an adopted daughter, Christina Willoughby.
Illness and death
Lindsay suffered a stroke in 1989 that reduced him simply to being the "titular leader" of the 9th District, with much of the real power in the hands of Bob Gay, his chief assistant, the Downtown News reported. "On the Council floor, he has had moments of confusion, and been both humored and manipulated by the other councilmembers. Those who deal with him say that he has moments of tremendous clarity, but that he is largely removed from the day-to-day workings of the office." Lindsay had lost "some control of his hands and has had trouble writing." City Council President John FerraroJohn Ferraro
John Ferraro was the longest-serving Los Angeles City Council member in the history of the city—thirty-five years, from 1966 until his death in 2001—and the president of the council for fourteen of them...
said that Lindsay had "deteriorated to the point where he was incapable of doing his job." Lindsay was sent to a hospital again when, in the midst of the excitement occasioned by a planned visit to City Hall by South African anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
, he forgot to take his diabetes medicine and collapsed.
He was brought to a hospital in Inglewood, California
Inglewood, California
Inglewood is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, southwest of downtown Los Angeles. It was incorporated on February 14, 1908. Its population stood at 109,673 as of the 2010 Census...
, where he remained until his fellow City Council members talked about removing him from his Council seat because he had been outside the Los Angeles city limits for more than 90 days. He was then transferred to "another facility within Los Angeles city limits to make him less vulnerable to efforts to unseat him."
By then in his 28th year as a City Council member, Lindsay died in a Hollywood hospital December 28, 1990, "as a result of a long illness which began with a severe stroke in early September that left him paralyzed on the right side and unable to speak and, at the end, was complicated by a heart attack." A funeral service was held at Victory Baptist Church, and he was buried in Evergreen Cemetery. Lindsay was a member of People's Baptist Church.
Public service
Lindsay became involved in Democratic and labor politics and became so influential that his bosses in Water and Power "called on him to turn out the black vote on various bond issues." He was on the board of directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored PeopleNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
from 1953 to 1958 and was also an NAACP vice president. He was tapped by City Council candidate Kenneth Hahn
Kenneth Hahn
Kenneth "Kenny" Hahn was a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for forty years, from 1952 to 1992. Hahn was on the Los Angeles City Council from 1947 to 1952. He was an ardent supporter of civil rights throughout the 1960s, and met Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1961.-Biography:Hahn...
as his aide to turn out the Negro vote. Hahn won and when he later became a county supervisor he appointed Lindsay as a field deputy, a job that Lindsay held for ten years, until 1963.
Appointment and elections
See also List of Los Angeles municipal election returns, 1963 and after.Lindsay became Los Angeles's first black council member at the age of 62 when, with the backing of the political Hahn brothers—Gordon
Gordon Hahn
Gordon R. Hahn was a member of the Los Angeles City Council and California State Assembly in the mid-20th Century.While on the council, he cast the decisive vote that brought the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles and was instrumental in the appointment of Gilbert Lindsay, who became the first...
and Kenneth
Kenneth Hahn
Kenneth "Kenny" Hahn was a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for forty years, from 1952 to 1992. Hahn was on the Los Angeles City Council from 1947 to 1952. He was an ardent supporter of civil rights throughout the 1960s, and met Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1961.-Biography:Hahn...
—he was appointed to a vacant 9th District Council seat in January 1963 after Ed Roybal won election to Congress. He won election in his own right later in the year and was reelected to eight successive terms. As the years passed, he proclaimed himself the "Emperor of the Great 9th District." Lindsay's term of of 27 years was surpassed only by those of John S. Gibson, Jr.
John S. Gibson, Jr.
John S. Gibson, Jr. was a powerful San Pedro, California, politician who was on the Los Angeles City Council for thirty years between 1951 and 1981. He was the president of the council for sixteen of those years and was acting mayor when the mayor was out of the city...
(30 years), Marvin Braude
Marvin Braude
Marvin Braude was a member of the Los Angeles City Council for 32 years, between 1965 and 1997—the third-longest-serving council member in the history of the city...
, 31 years, Ernani Bernardi
Ernani Bernardi
Ernani Bernardi , known also as Noni Bernardi, was a big-band musician turned politician in Los Angeles, California. He represented District 7 on the City Council there from 1961 to 1993—at 32 years the second-longest-serving council member in the history of the city...
(32 years) and John Ferraro
John Ferraro
John Ferraro was the longest-serving Los Angeles City Council member in the history of the city—thirty-five years, from 1966 until his death in 2001—and the president of the council for fourteen of them...
(35 years).
Positions
Developers. Over the years, Lindsay attracted criticism "that he was too cozy with big developers, that he favored Downtown Los AngelesDowntown Los Angeles
Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, United States, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area...
and neglected the neighborhoods." He was often criticized for supporting Downtown "at the expense of the southern portion of his district." But City News Service writer Cathy Franklin said of him: "During his nearly three decades in office, the downtown area exploded into one of the premier business centers of the world."
Blue lights. Lindsay clashed "in a bitter personal exchange" with Councilman Ernani Bernardi when the latter introduced a resolution aimed at removing the blue lights that Lindsay had had installed on the rear of his city automobile. Lindsay later agreed to remove the lights but said: "The thing that disturbs me is that my colleagues equivocate over frivolous motions that amount to nothing. They gag at a gnat and swallow a camel."
Morals. The 9th District councilman opined that San Fernando Valley
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...
communities would "not be having problems with topless-bottomless bars if moral levels matched those" of his Downtown Los Angeles
Downtown Los Angeles
Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, United States, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area...
and South L.A.
South Los Angeles
South Los Angeles, often abbreviated as South L.A. and formerly South Central Los Angeles, is the official name for a large geographic and cultural portion lying to the southwest and southeast of downtown Los Angeles, California. The area was formerly called South Central, and is still widely known...
district. "We have clean-minded people and a clean district," he said. "All this junk is out there where the affluent aristocrats, the holier-than-thou people live."
Council members. Interviewed by Los Angeles Times reporter Janet Clayton for an article about relationships among City Council members, Lindsay noted in 1984 that "All the council members get along fine when they need a vote. Otherwise, they can't stand each other, or I should say, don't genuinely like each other. They each have their own agenda, you know." He said he has a "simple formula" fr deciding issues: "When I give my word on a vote, I haven't reneged, least not more than a half dozen times in 20 years. I vote my district, then my friends, and, what's good for me."
Skid Row. The Times noted that Lindsay, "whose district includes Skid Row, has always favored upscale commercial and residential development in the area, the last big undeveloped stretch of downtown Los Angeles." In 1987 the councilman, along with a group of business owners objected to putting more residential and treatment centers in Skid Row on the grounds they were "drawing the homeless, including the mentally ill" to an area that had "great potential for commercial growth."
Afterword
In April 1992, a Superior CourtSuperior court
In common law systems, a superior court is a court of general competence which typically has unlimited jurisdiction with regard to civil and criminal legal cases...
jury ruled that Juanda Chauncie, Lindsay's 40-year-old girlfriend, had taken advantage of the councilman to gain control of his money and property. The five-woman, seven-man panel ruled that Chauncie had used undue influence over him and awarded $235,000 to Lindsay's stepson and estate. Attorney Johnnie Cochran
Johnnie Cochran
Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. was an American lawyer best known for his leadership role in the defense and criminal acquittal of O. J...
's firm represented the estate.
Legacy
- The Gilbert W. Lindsay Child Abuse Center at California Medical HospitalCalifornia Hospital Medical CenterCalifornia Hospital Medical Center is a hospital in Los Angeles, California, USA. It is currently operated by Catholic Healthcare West.-Services:The emergency department at CHMC is certified as a level II trauma center for adults.-History:...
"for the councilman's contributions to the Central City community"
- The Gilbert W. Lindsay Endowed Public Policy Forum in Forensic Science at California State University, Los AngelesCalifornia State University, Los AngelesCalifornia State University, Los Angeles is a public comprehensive university, part of the California State University system...
- A $250,000, 10-foot-high-artwork titled "The Emperor of the Great 9th District" on the Gilbert Lindsay Plaza fronting the Los Angeles Convention CenterLos Angeles Convention CenterThe Los Angeles Convention Center is a convention center in the southwest portion of downtown Los Angeles. The LACC hosts annual events such as the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show and Anime Expo, and is best known to video games fans as host to E3...
- Gilbert Lindsay Mall, a small plaza at the end of an alley off 2nd Street in Little Tokyo
- Gilbert Lindsay Recreation Center, 429 East 42nd Street
Additional reading
- http://dbase1.lapl.org/webpics/calindex/documents/06/366689.pdf Steven Wolf, "Gilbert Lindsay: Rose From the Bottom of the City to the Top," Downtown News, December 31, 1990, pages 1 and 3