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  George Livingston Remembered
January 8, 2012
 

Shortly after George Livingston was elected mayor in 1985, we invited him and Eunice for dinner at what was then our new home in Point Richmond on East Scenic Avenue. Before dinner, George, who would have been about 55 at the time, looked straight up at Nichol Knob, several hundred feet above, and in an impulsive moment took off running full speed right to the top. I’m not sure I could have done it at the time, although I was  more than 20 years younger.

In later years, I often reminded him of that, and he enjoyed reminiscing about his dash to the top of the hill, a metaphor for his life.

I really got to know George during the mayoral race of 1985, which was a watershed year for the future of Richmond’s shoreline.

The battle lines were first drawn in the City Council election of May 14, 1985 when a political action committee called the West Contra Costa Bayshore Council was formed to advocate for mixed uses on Richmond’s shoreline as opposed to exclusively industrial uses. Livingston was not up for election that year, but the four candidates backed by the Bayshore Council, Corcoran (for mayor), Ziesenhenne, Griffin and Corbin prevailed.

The West County Times summarized the election:

Traditional heavy industry collided with the forces of upscale waterfront condominiums, restaurants and sailboat berths in this year’s city elections, and when the dust settled, the new kid won… Industry got its teeth pulled for the first time in the history of the City”, said Bud Wakeland, El Sobrante political consultant.

By today’s standards, some of those elected would not exactly be considered anti-industry or pro-environment, but in the context of the times, it was significant.

In the summer of 1985, Mayor Corcoran died, and Livingston was selected by the City Council as interim mayor, pending an election to be held in November 1985 to fill the unexpired term of Mayor Corcoran.

In November 1985, Livingston squared off in the mayor’s race against Lavonne Niccolls, the last declared Republican to serve of the Richmond City Council. Once again, the issue was the future of Richmond’s waterfront. Earlier in 1985, Livingston and Nichols had clashed over a conditional use permit needed by Petromark to expand a tank farm into the area that is now the Ferry Point component of the Miller-Knox Regional Shoreline. Niccolls supported the expansion, and Livingston opposed it.

In an endorsement for Livingston, the West County Times wrote on November 1, 1985:

Realizing that Richmond’s small, deepwater port is losing ground to Southern California shipping powers, Livingston advocates diversification of that area into open space, residential, light industrial, office and recreational uses. “The container area is not being utilized anyway, “ he says. “I’d like to see a Jack London Square-type development in that area.”

While Niccolls had said, according to the Times, that if she were elected mayor, it would signal to developers a new direction for the city instead of the old “politics as usual,” The Times concluded that Livingston, however, had walked the talk:

But Livingston’s vote earlier this year against an application by Petromark, an oil company, to expand its oil tank facilities on the waterfront did more to signal to developers his willingness to consider new options for Richmond. It also won him the endorsement of the West Contra Costa Bayshore Council, an organization of upscale homeowners on the waterfront that is helping to change Richmond’s image from strictly blue collar industrial to blue-and-white collar office and industrial.

Livingston went on to win another term and served almost two full terms until he was defeated by Rosemary Corbin in 1993.

In the intervening years, I had the pleasure of talking with George frequently, and despite my political persuasion that Chamber of Commerce spokesperson Tom Waller once described as "anti-establishment radical progressive," I always had George’s support and endorsement.

Again, by today’s standards in Richmond politics, George Livingston may not be remembered as Richmond’s “environmental mayor,” but during those critical years of the mid-1980s when Richmond’s future hung in balance, his contribution was huge as he had the courage and the foresight to flout the power of Chevron and the Council of Industries, and along with other visionaries such as David MacDiarmid and Rosemary Corbin, lead Richmond in a new direction. During his terms, the City completed the 1987 “Shoreline Conservation and Development Strategy,” that made that new future official and was the basis for shoreline development policies in the 1994 General Plan and the new General Plan to be voted on in 2012.

That fight, although substantially won, is still going on in places like the North Shoreline and Point Molate. What would George do?

Richmond's first black mayor dies

By Gary Peterson
Contra Costa Times

Posted: 01/07/2012 03:40:34 PM PST
Updated: 01/07/2012 09:07:59 PM PST

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George Livingston, Richmond's first African American mayor, died after a long illness. He was...
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If George Livingston's only distinction was being Richmond's first elected African-American mayor, it still would make for a distinguished epitaph. But colleagues and acquaintances insist he was bigger than that.
Livingston died Saturday morning at Doctors Hospital in San Pablo after a long battle with diabetes. He was 78.
"He was a leader and also a coalition builder," U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, said. "He was able to work across the entire community. His goal was the development and growth of Richmond."
Livingston, an Oklahoma native, moved to Richmond with his family in 1952. He was elected to the Richmond City Council in 1965 and served three terms. He ran again, successfully, in 1973.
In 1985, Mayor Tom Corcoran died in office. Entrusted with appointing Corcoran's successor from among its own ranks, the council chose Livingston.
"They thought George would be the best person to unite the council and the communities in Richmond," said Contra Costa Supervisor John Gioia, a Richmond resident. "If you look at his legacy, he really worked hard at trying to find common ground among City Council members."
When Livingston decided to run for the office in 1989, he did it with zeal.
"It was a really big deal," Miller said. "He went out and worked his tail off and got himself elected. It was a big event. Those were rough-and-tumble times."
"He certainly wanted development of the port," said former Richmond City Councilman Jim McMillan. "There were a lot of things happening. The 23rd Street overpass was a big deal for us. And, of course, the parkway we now enjoy."
Livingston had a knack for bringing people together for a cause.
"He was a people's politician," Richmond Councilman Nat Bates said. "He had good relationships with all segments of the community. It wasn't just the black community. He reached out and had the respect and cooperation from everybody in the city. He was just that kind of mayor, a mayor for all the people."
His people skills extended beyond the political arena, McMillan said.
"He was also a caring person about friends," he said. "If he heard that you'd been ill for a day or two, he may show up at your house with a big bowl of soup. That's just the kind of person he was."
Yet McMillan and Bates both recall that Livingston had other methods of persuasion.
"Nobody as mayor has ever run a (City Council) meeting like he did," Bates said. "George didn't take any guff. He kept the meeting moving. You weren't there until 2 or 3 in the morning. He ruled that meeting with an iron fist, but he ruled it with respect and dignity."
"No one got out of order, including council people," McMillan said. "When he sounded the gavel, it was over. He disallowed personal attacks on council people. We didn't have to defend ourselves if someone made attacks that were purely personal."
Livingston served as mayor until 1993, when he was defeated by Rosemary Corbin in a re-election bid.
He left a legacy as a consensus builder and a towering figure in Richmond's political history. He rubbed elbows with the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., James Brown and Willie Mays, and could help launch a career at one of his celebrated parties.
"If you went, you had to know they were going to be political parties," Miller said. "If you were running for senator or governor, you'd drop by George Livingston's. I was very fortunate when I first ran. He supported and endorsed me, and that was critical."
"He was one of a kind who really cared about the city," McMillan said.
Livingston is survived by his wife, Eunice, son George Jr. and daughter Grace Livingston-Nunley. Funeral services are pending.
Contact Gary Peterson at 925-952-5053. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/garyscribe.

Richmond icon recounts a past of trials and triumphs

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George Livingston in his living room, in front of a portrait of him as mayor.
By: Robert Rogers | March 21, 2011 – 8:00 am

This profile is the latest in a series of multimedia productions exploring Richmond's cultural, racial and economic history:

One of Richmond’s greatest leaders is thumbing through a history book, looking for his picture.
Page after page flips slowly from right to left. The book, its hard corners blunted by the years, was published in the 1970s, and celebrates the surge of African Americans in elected positions since the Voting Rights act of 1965.
One page glows with a young Ron Dellums. The reader chuckles.
“Oh yeah, he looks young.”
Next page. John Lewis’ solemn, pious face looks out, restoring seriousness.
Then, it is him. The old man looks down through his black-rimmed glasses and sees himself, or at least a two-dimensional image of who he was more than three decades ago.
“Oh there, there I was,” he says, his finger gently tracing the edge of the page. “That was me.”
George Livingston is 77-years-old now, and endures thrice-weekly dialysis treatments for his failing kidneys, a condition brought on by his diabetes. The lanky gait and easy smile that he fashioned as one of Richmond’s brightest political leaders from the 1960s until the 1990s still have life, albeit sapped by age and fatigue.
“I’m 77 years old,” Livingston says often, almost as if reminding himself that so many years have passed since he was a strong, rangy kid who ventured west from Oklahoma. “I just don’t have the same energy that I used to.”
But if Livingston is a bit more hunched and a shade shallower of breath, he can still beam with pride at a recollection, still jolt with animation when offering insights into the moves he made decades ago. Don’t ask him what year something happened (“All those years just run together,” he says), but he just might be able to tell you how it felt, and who he worked with or against to make it happen.
On a cool February morning, Livingston pads about the central Richmond home he has shared with his wife for more than 20 years. Dressed in dark slacks and a soft gray and black button up, he chats about his past, his triumphs, his mistakes and the city he loves.
“It can be a lonely world when you’ve got health problems,” says Livingston, reclining on an embroidered green sofa in his small, orderly living room. “But I’m thankful. I can still get around, drive, take out my garbage. Life could be much worse.”
George Livingston is a living, flesh and blood artifact of the period of tumult and evolution that changed the city during after the post-World War II population boom. He trekked with his family from Oklahoma to Richmond in 1952, and spent his late teenaged years toiling in the dusty shipyards of the California delta.
But from an early age Livingston had the makings of a leader.
“I remember out in the shipyards, blue-collar type environments, that was actually the first time I was getting treated a certain way because I was black,” Livingston says, adding that several times he endured crude epithets on the rough-and-tumble job sites.
“At the time, it was thought that if you were black, you couldn’t be a leader, but I was thinking even back then that I wanted to do more than just be told what to do.”
martin luther king jr. and george livingston
Livingston, right, met with Martin Luther King Jr. when the Civil Rights leader visited Contra Costa College.
For several years, Livingston worked as a laborer and took courses at Contra Costa College. His instinct to lead, coupled with the agitations and ambitions of the early Civil Rights movement, helped Livingston begin to blossom.
In the early 1960s, Livinston got involved in student government. As a campus leader, he had the opportunity to play host to Martin Luther King Jr., who had become a national figure by leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955.
Livingston says King moved and spoke with a gravitas the likes of which he had never seen. The young student was never the same.
A photo of Livingston greeting King at Contra Costa College in San Pablo hangs on his living room wall.
“I will always cherish those moments” with King, Livingston says.
Livingston made history of his own when he was elected to the Richmond City Council in 1965, becoming just the second African American elected to city office and helping pave the way for a new generation of leaders.
Livingston served for six years during that term, along the way meeting with such political luminaries as Robert F. Kennedy, whom he met during the senator’s campaign swing through Oakland.
Cal State Sacramento historian Shirley Moore, who has authored several books on Richmond’s history, said Livingston is among the city’s most important political figures of the last half-century.
George Livingston
George Livingston, as mayor, presenting an award to singer Bobby Brown in the late 1980s visit to Richmond. (photo courtesy George Livingston Jr.)
Moore, who interviewed Livingston extensively in the 1980s and 1990s while conducting historical research, said the native Midwesterner was most effective as a “true booster for Richmond and its potential,” an embodiment of the hard-working and upwardly mobile class of new black leaders.
“He was a tremendously important, transitional figure,” Moore said. “As an immigrant from Oklahoma, he was keenly aware of why people came west to Richmond and what they brought and hoped for. He came at a time, and at an age, that made him perfectly positioned to experience that full sweep of Richmond’s post World War II transition.”
It turned out that Livingston was a leading edge of a movement that was changing the nation, and shifting the power structure in Richmond in a way that is still apparent today.
By the early 1980s, a majority of the upper-echelon of elected and appointed city leaders were African American.
“At first on the council there was a turn politically in the black community when the blacks began to come into the city,” Livingston says. “When I first arrived, there were some members of the City Council who didn’t really count black votes anyway, they figured ‘If I can keep these people from voting and get my white base to the polls I’ll be fine.”
Livingston chuckles at the thought. He harbors no resentment, which is perhaps part of why he has been such a resilient, popular figure, a man whom City Councilman and longtime political contemporary Nat Bates calls “the ultimate bridge builder between everyone.”
Livingston rolls his fingers in a circle, like a fishing reel, and nods his chin upward.
“So I saw a lot of their disappointment once they saw that black votes were starting to matter and their own base was dwindling,” he says. “I can understand that.”
He was elected to City Council again in 1973 and became mayor in 1985 when then-mayor Thomas Corcoran died unexpectedly. In 1989, he was elected in his own right, becoming the first African American mayor elected by the people of Richmond.
A proclamation awarded by the City Council and mayor in 2009 said Livingston’s “… public and private life has inspired many to work harder and achieve more for themselves and the community, breaking barriers and obstacles, and opening doors of opportunity for others to follow.”
When asked what he regards as his greatest accomplishment while in office, Livingston points to his work negotiating the development of Hilltop Mall in the mid 1970s.
“We had to jockey against Pinole, and San Pablo was trying to get it,” Livingston remembers.
Livingston says the land for the mall was owned by Chevron, and other area cities were looking to annex it in order to get the tax benefits of a vibrant new retail center. But there was resistance from business leaders in the fading downtown district who saw the mall as a threat to siphon away their customer base.
“We had to make a political decision, and I thought the best decision was to get the shopping center,” Livingston says.
That was Livingston’s style in office, as it has generally been in life: To enlarge the opportunities, to let more people into the process. But Livingston sees the achievement of expanding the city and its tax base with some ambivalence. Hilltop Mall opened in 1976, and the city’s old downtown was decimated. The major downtown retailers either moved to the new mall or closed outright soon after.
But while securing Hilltop Mall for Richmond was a great coup, it will always be marred by the piece of land slipped through his fingers, that all of his adroit politicking couldn’t secure.
It was North Richmond. The anti-Hilltop. The rural, unwanted, neglected patch of poverty and pollution near just northwest of the Iron Triangle and southwest of Hilltop. About 2,500 people, virtually all African Americans, lived there.
“I said we need to bring those individuals in that were not getting what they deserve,” Livingston says.
By any logic, it should be part of Richmond, not unincorporated county jurisdiction. Instead, a pencil-thin line runs through North Richmond, the space between two railroad tracks. It serves to connect the central city to Hilltop Mall, and thus satisfy state law that city lands must be contiguous.
“There was some feeling on the council to annex North Richmond, but there was a split group on the council,” Livingston says. “At the time we had nine members and there were some industrial interests out there who didn’t want to be annexed to Richmond because they thought they would have a better political system to be just the county.”
Better political system? Livingston shrugs. He says sometimes he still can’t shake the habit that to which long time politicians tend to succumb — sugarcoating things.
“They saw themselves as paying more taxes and having more scrutiny as far as regulations, and they didn’t want that,” he says. “So they worked hard to lobby the council and to build support at the community level.”
What followed was a tough, tricky battle that has been waged several times before and since, Livingston recalls. Major manufacturers, chemical processing companies, waste collectors and absentee landlords lobby to remain subjects of the county, and they always win.
Did business interests in the area grease the process in favor of annexation? Did bribery occur, as activists in North Richmond have alleged over the years?
“All I can say is I never received anything,” Livingston says.
He mulls the question further. To this day, North Richmond doesn’t have a single traffic signal. Homicide rates there have, over the years, been some of the highest in the nation. Maybe it could have all been different.
Was the political process corrupted?
“I don’t know. It was so many years ago. There are some questions that you pass on, you know, I’m going to pass on that one,” he says.
But, as in most things, Livingston says he’s optimistic for the future. In the current council, he sees a group of eclectic but solidly progressive leaders who seem as likely as any to take on the task of annexing North Richmond, Livingston says. Even the old guard, Councilman Bates, has long favored annexation.
Bates, who hasn’t always seen eye to eye with Livingston, is effusive in his praise.
“George is a great, great man and was one of our greatest mayors,” Bates said. “He was a leader of vision and the type who could unify different groups.”
Bates had particular praise for Livingston’s business and development instincts, which he said were on display in the annexation of Hilltop.
“It turned into a gold mine for our city,” Bates said.
Back in his living room, Livingston says he is still bothered that he left office in defeat, having been ousted as mayor in a close vote in 1993. He thinks he could have made a difference with another term.
“We were attracting business, and I wanted that to continue,” Livingston says.
Instead, in many respects, Richmond slid back a bit in the late 1980s and 1990s, as drugs and gangs rode roughshod on the city, businesses closed shop and Richmond’s reputation turned darker. Whether that was anything that Livingston or any mayor could have eased cannot be known, but he maintains that he could have made a difference.
“There were so many young people at that time who wound up getting involved in drugs and such, instead of getting on to something positive,” Livingston says. “I had learned a lot, I knew how to get things done.”
But guilt goes nowhere, Livingston says, waving away the bad vibes with a smile and slow wave of his right hand. He still stays abreast of issues and has an ear for local politics.
“At first it hurt, but then you figure out, that’s life. You win some, you lose some,” he says.
At one point, Livingston breaks off mid-sentence to pick up a ringing phone, and chats briefly with friend Lonnie Washington, another lifelong African American leader in Richmond who is widely seen as a kingmaker in local politics.
Livingston hangs up, and looks at the wall for several seconds.
“You know, I have met so many great leaders and picked up so much over the years,” Livingston says, easing back into his couch.
“But I learned something that I’ll never forget from Mayor Daley in Chicago.”
Daley? The notoriously crooked and brutal master of Windy City machine politics at the height of its ill-repute?
Livingston says he went to Chicago during a conference in the 1970s, and attended a Cubs baseball game with the “boss.”
“We were all, as guests, supposed to get five tickets,” he says. “Daley looks at them and says he wants 20, and the ticket person says he only is supposed to give out five. Well, Daley just looks, and he says ‘I am Mayor Daley and I want 20,’ and that was it.”
Livingston laughs, then gets hit with a fit of coughs. He reaches for a plastic cup and takes a sip of ice water.
“He ruled with a double-up fist, he didn’t take any prisoners,” Livingston says. “I never wanted to be that kind of leader.”
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