San Francisco and Kamala Harris; Election Insight; Michael Jackson's Biopic

September 1, 2024

Good morning. Welcome to our weekly Sunday newsletter. We are covering San Francisco’s influence on the rise of Vice President Kamala Harris, HBCUs securing federal dollars, Michael Jackson’s 2025 biopic and how young adults may vote this election.

Timeline: How San Francisco’s Democratic political machine led to Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign

By Lisa D. Tinsley

The political earthquake that launched Vice President Kamala Harris as the 2024 Democratic Party nominee is a San Francisco story that began more than 60 years ago.

New Beginnings

• Key figures in this political narrative include a strategist, a Holocaust survivor turned congresswoman, a civil rights lawyer from Texas, and a politically powerful family.

• Harris and Nancy Pelosi trace their political careers back to the 1963 mayoral race in San Francisco.

• The pivotal election and strategic alliances from this era set the stage for Harris’ rise in national politics.

Birth of a legacy

• In early 1964, Phil Burton won Jack Shelley's old Congressional seat, solidifying his reputation for political genius in areas like redistricting and candidate strategy.

• Phil's brother, John, introduced him to George Moscone, a promising young Italian American attorney, and encouraged him to run for the California Assembly.

• The plan worked, leading to Moscone's rise to the Board of Supervisors in 1963, the state Senate in 1966, and eventually, mayor of San Francisco in 1975.

• The Burton brothers created a powerful political machine in San Francisco that impacted national politics.

• The Burton operation supported a generation of Bay Area politicians, including Barbara Boxer and George Miller.

• Phil Burton's most notable achievement in Congress was helping to create the 80,000-acre Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

The machine matures

• After the 1963 election, the Burton brothers supported Willie Brown in a 1964 Democratic primary against incumbent Ed Gaffney.

• Brown won the primary and general election, holding the Assembly seat until becoming San Francisco mayor in 1995.

• Phil Burton served in the House until his death in 1983 and nearly became House Majority Leader in 1976.

• After Phil's death, his widow, Sala Burton, took his Congressional seat.

• In 1987, as Sala Burton was dying, she became central in deciding her successor in Congress, with the backing of the Burton political operation.

Enter Kamala Harris

• In the mid-1990s, while Kamala Harris was a young prosecutor in Alameda County, she was romantically involved with Willie Brown, a prominent California politician.

• After the relationship ended, Brown was Harris’ political mentor, helping her get started in San Francisco politics and win her upset victory in the 2003 district attorney’s race there.

• From there, Harris became the state attorney general, a U.S. senator, the Democratic vice president and, now, the Democratic nominee for president.

• The Burton brothers set out in the 1960s to move the Democratic Party in California leftward, and in doing that put a chain of events in motion that has the whole world’s attention.

campus chronicles // hbcu edition

• Shaw University secured a $450,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to support the “Research Initiation Award: Investigating Disparities Among Smart Technology Privacy Studies” project.  The primary objective of this project is to assess whether specific device types or demographic factors—including race, ethnicity, gender, and age—are underrepresented in existing studies about smart technology privacy. 

• The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB) nursing program will receive a $15 million investment to construct a new academic building as part of a major legislative package championed by U.S. Senator John Boozman (R-AR). UAPB offers two program tracks: a pre-licensure Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree and a registered nurse to Bachelor of Science in Nursing (R.N. to BSN) program for nurses who are already licensed.

• Kentucky State University is teaming up with the Kentucky Department for Public Health to improve public health across the commonwealth through collaborative programs.  KSU will launch three mobile health units designed to provide essential healthcare services to underserved areas in Eastern Kentucky, West Louisville, and Western Kentucky. The mobile units will offer screenings, health care, and nutritional education to address chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

election insight

• Approximately 40 million members of Gen Z will be eligible to vote in November. Of that 40 million, almost half are young people of color, including nearly 6 million Black youth.

• The number of Black eligible voters in the United States is projected to reach 34.4 million in November 2024 after several years of modest growth. Black eligible voters stand out for turnout rates that are higher than Latino and Asian eligible voters.

• Despite experiencing racial discrimination at similar rates, Black Republicans and Democrats differ in how they view its effects. Black Republicans are less likely than Black Democrats (44% vs. 73%) to say racial discrimination is the main reason Black people can’t get ahead in the U.S., and they are more likely to say Black people who can’t get ahead are mostly responsible for their own condition (45% vs. 21%). Source: Pew Research

black history in quotes 

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our community in numbers

Education: In Baltimore, Maryland 96 of the 139 schools use bottled water because of lead.

Climate: Climate change concerns 88% of Black voters.

Health: Black adults (55%) say they have had at least one of six negative experiences with doctors or other health care providers.

Business: Black or African-American majority-owned firms provided income for roughly 1.4 million workers in 2021. Their annual payrolls were estimated at $53.6 billion.

Housing: Data from 2023 shows that 20% of Black millennials are mortgage-ready. Unfortunately, they face significant challenges, including fewer financial assets and wealth for down payments, which hinder their ability to achieve homeownership compared to their White counterparts.

culture

Michael Jackson’s biopic, scheduled for release in 2025, will feature Jaafar Jackson, Nia Long, Colman Domingo and Larenz Tate.

John Legend releases children’s album, “My Favorite Dream.” Legend wants the album “to feel like we were in like a magical film with fantasy aspects and dream sequences and enegy and fun and light.”

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See Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz art collection, GIANTS, at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art beginning in this month.

Our editor, Lisa D. Tinsley, would like to thank you for spending part of your day with KISA News Radio. See you next Sunday.

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