Lionel Wilson; Ex-Judge, Oakland’s 1st Black Mayor

OAKLAND —  Lionel Wilson, the first black mayor of Oakland, has died after battling cancer for the last year. He was 82.

The Alameda County coroner’s office said Wilson’s doctor reported that he had died Friday at home. Officials said Wilson had suffered from multiple myeloma.

Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris issued a statement Wednesday praising Wilson for paving the way for black politicians in the area.

“Lionel Wilson, a giant both in law and politics, blazed trails over which many have followed, including myself,” Harris said. “This is a tremendous loss for the city, a tremendous loss for me.”

Wilson grew up in a time when there was only one black teacher in Oakland, the Fire Department was segregated and blacks couldn’t swim in public pools. Wilson became a lawyer and then a Superior Court judge before running for mayor.

When Wilson was elected mayor in 1977, he became the leader of the most integrated city in the United States.

A politician to his core, Wilson was as proud of his victory over the conservative Republican Knowland family--which then owned the Oakland Tribune and ran the city’s politics--as he was of his racial groundbreaking.

“I guess I was one of the first, not just blacks, but Democrats, to beat the Knowlands,” Wilson said.

Wilson’s most traumatic experience as mayor was the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which flattened a section of Interstate 880 in Oakland, killing many commuters. The highway has still not been fully restored.

Wilson was elected to three terms but lost a 1990 election to Harris after making an expensive and ultimately unsuccessful bid to return the then-Los Angeles Raiders to Oakland.