Early career Bradley left his studies to join the
Los Angeles Police Department in 1940. He became one of 400 black officers in a police department that had 4,000 officers. He recalled "the downtown department store that refused him credit, although he was a police officer, and the restaurants that would not serve blacks." He told a
Los Angeles Times reporter: When I came on the department, there were literally two assignments for black officers. You either worked Newton Street Division, which has a predominantly black community, or you worked traffic
downtown. You could not work with a white officer, and that continued until 1964. Upon his leaving the office of mayor in 1993, he joined the law offices of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison, specializing in international trade issues. Tom Bradley's entry into politics came when he decided to become the president of the United Club. The club was part of the
California Democratic Council, a liberal, reformist group organized in the 1950s by young Democrats energized by
Adlai E. Stevenson's presidential campaigns. It was predominantly white and had many Jewish members, thus marking the beginnings of the coalition, which along with Latinos, that would carry him to electoral victory so many times. His choice of a Democratic circle also put him at odds with another political force in the African American community, representatives of poor, all-black areas who were associated with the political organization of
Jesse M. Unruh, then an up-and-coming state assemblyman. The early stage of Bradley's political career was marked by clashes with African American leaders like onetime California Lieutenant Governor and former
U.S. Representative Mervyn Dymally, an Unruh ally.
Los Angeles City Council In June 1961, the post for
10th District was vacated by
Charles Navarro when he was elected city
controller. Bradley, a police lieutenant living at 3397 Welland Avenue, was one of 12 people to apply for the position. The City Council, which had the power to fill a vacancy, instead appointed
Joe E. Hollingsworth. When the position was up for election again, in April 1963, Bradley ran against Hollingsworth. There were only two candidates, Hollingsworth and Bradley, and also two elections — one for the unexpired term left by Controller Navarro, ending June 30, and one for a full four-year term starting July 1. Bradley won the first, 17,760 to 10,540 votes, and the second election, 17,552 to 10,400 votes. By then he had retired from the police force, and he was sworn in as a councilman at the age of 45 on April 15, 1963, the first African-American elected to City Council. One of his first votes was in opposition to a proposed study by City Attorney
Roger Arnebergh and Police Chief
William H. Parker of the
Dictionary of American Slang, ordered in an 11–4 vote by the council. Councilman
Tom Shepard's motion said the book was "saturated not only with phrases of sexual filth, but wordage defamatory of minority ethnic groups and definitions insulting religions and races." When asked why he did not participate in public demonstrations, Bradley said that he saw his position on the City Council as a way to bring groups together. He expressed a desire to establish a human relations commission for the city.
Campaign for Mayor of Los Angeles , 1973. In 1969, Bradley first challenged incumbent Mayor
Sam Yorty, a conservative
Democrat for mayor in the
nonpartisan election. Armed with key endorsements (including the
Los Angeles Times), Bradley held a substantial lead over Yorty in the primary, but was a few percentage points shy of winning the race outright. However, Yorty pulled out a come-from-behind victory to win reelection. Yorty questioned Bradley's credibility in fighting crime and painted a picture of Bradley, a fellow Democrat, as a threat to Los Angeles because he would supposedly open up the city to
Black Nationalists. Bradley did not use his record as a police officer in the election. With the race factor, even many liberal white voters became hesitant to support Bradley. It would be another four years, in 1973, before Bradley would unseat Yorty. Powerful downtown business interests at first opposed Bradley. But with passage of the 1974 redevelopment plan and the inclusion of business leaders on influential committees, corporate chiefs moved in behind him. A significant feature of this plan was the development and building of numerous skyscrapers in the Bunker Hill financial district.
Mayor of Los Angeles LA at the
Paramount Studios lot in 1988.|left Bradley served for 20 years as mayor of Los Angeles, surpassing
Fletcher Bowron with the longest tenure in that office. Bradley contributed to the financial success of the city by helping develop the satellite business hubs at
Century City and
Warner Center. Bradley was a strong supporter of public transit throughout his political career, and he was a driving force behind the construction of Los Angeles' light rail network. Upon his election as mayor in 1973, Bradley sought to build a comprehensive rail system in Los Angeles. In 1984, Bradley presided over the first profitable
Summer Olympics. Bradley was mayor when the city hosted the
1984 Summer Olympics and when the city became the second-most-populated U.S. city after New York, also in 1984. in 1976. Although Bradley was a political liberal, he believed that business prosperity was good for the entire city and would generate jobs, an outlook like that of his successor,
Richard Riordan. For most of Bradley's administration, the city appeared to agree with him. But in his fourth term, with traffic congestion, air pollution and the condition of
Santa Monica Bay worsening, and with residential neighborhoods threatened by commercial development, the tide began to turn. In 1989, he was elected to a fifth term, but the ability of opponent
Nate Holden to attract one-third of the vote, despite being a neophyte to the Los Angeles City Council and a very late entrant to the mayoral race, signaled that Bradley's era was drawing to a close. Other factors in the waning of his political strength were his decision to reverse himself and support a controversial oil drilling project near the
Pacific Palisades and his reluctance to condemn
Louis Farrakhan, the
Black Muslim minister who made speeches in Los Angeles and elsewhere that many considered anti-Semitic. Further, some key Bradley supporters lost their City Council reelection bids, among them veteran Westside Councilwoman
Pat Russell. Bradley chose to leave office in 1993 rather than seek election to a sixth term.
Gubernatorial campaigns appearance during his 1986 campaign Bradley ran for
Governor of California twice, in 1982 and 1986, but lost both times to
Republican George Deukmejian. He was the first African American to head a gubernatorial ticket in California. In 1982,
the election was extremely close. Bradley led in the polls going into election day, and in the initial hours after the polls closed, some news organizations projected him as the winner. Ultimately, Bradley lost the election by 93,345 votes, about 1.2% of the 7,876,698 votes cast. These circumstances gave rise to the term the "
Bradley effect", which refers to a tendency of voters to tell interviewers or pollsters that they are undecided or likely to vote for a black candidate, but then actually vote for his white opponent. In
1986, Bradley lost the rematch to Deukmejian 61% to 37%. ==Death and legacy==