Articles

Willie Brown: Power, Money and Instinct

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA–Frank Fat’s is the smallest building on its block. Painted garishly pink outside, the Chinese restaurant is sandwiched between a parking garage and an old brick office building a short walk from the California State Capitol. The napkin from Frank Fat’s restaurant

Jim Richardson February 2, 1994

Under political siege in 1988, Willie Brown listens to two of the five Assembly Democrats who attempted to unseat him as Speaker. The Gang of Five's rebellion eventually fizzled. At left is Assemblyman Steve Peace of Chula Vista and, right Jerry Eaves of Rialto. Photo by Rich Pedroncelli

Willie Brown: The Members’ Speaker

SAN FRANCISCO — Willie Brown, his tuxedo glistening in the spotlight, bounced onto a stage in the ornate ballroom of the Fairmont Hotel, the grandiose citadel of San Francisco’s old-moneyed establishment. California’s most powerful politician began introducing his after-dinner entertainment and his guests

Jim Richardson November 17, 1993

Two inmates enrolled in drug treatment in Chicago's Cook County jail await a court appearance. Photo by John Sundlof

Pushing Treatment For Prisoners

CHICAGO–A tale of two junkies: Dwight Walker sat in his cell in the Cook County Jail last September, aching, cramping, and spitting up, and worrying about how much time he’d get for his robberies. Two inmates enrolled in drug treatment in Chicago’s Cook

Steve Bogira November 17, 1993

United Nations soldiers escort Cambodian refugees returning to Sisophon, Cambodia, in March 1992. Photo by Peter Charlesworth, JB Pictures

Good Intentions Gone Awry: The U.N. Leaves Cambodia

CAMBODIA–Phnom Penh–Micheline LaJoie, a forty-something, brassy blonde former real estate agent from Quebec, eased her hulking white Land Cruiser through curtains of bamboo into the Khmer Rouge village of Chrey Leung. Two weeks before, the Khmer Rouge had taken four United Nations peacekeepers

Judith Coburn November 15, 1993

A metal detector is used in Mather High School in Chicago to find weapons that students carry. © 1993, John Sundlof, all right reserved.

Jailing Juveniles

A spirit of optimism about children created the nation’s first juvenile court, in Cook County, Illinois, in 1899. Kids who got in trouble were still kids, the prevailing thinking went, and the focus ought to be on reforming instead of punishing them. A

Steve Bogira August 19, 1993

Cambodian Prince Norodom Shianouk, right, waves before entering a Supreme National Council Meeting in Beijing with Yasushi Akashi, left, the head of the U.N. peacekeeping operating in Cambodia. The meeting was held at Sihanouk's Beijing home. AP/Wide World Photos.

Peacekeeping in Cambodia: Breathing Space

CAMBODIA–Thmar Pouk–The Khmer Rouge was a no-show. They were supposed to be there for the weekly meeting of the local “Mixed Military Working Group,” a United Nations-run network to police the Cambodian peace accord. Officers from the three other once warring Cambodian factions

Judith Coburn August 17, 1993

Willie Brown, front row, third from right, and the men of Jones Methodist Church. Photo courtesy of the Rev. Hamilton T. Boswell.

Willie Brown: The Play for Power

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA — Willie Brown arrived to face the cameras and the questions. A new Speaker had been chosen in a closed-door meeting of Democrats in the California State Assembly and it was time to make the announcement: A liberal Democrat from San

Jim Richardson August 10, 1993

A Colville Indian chief stands with government engineers on March 22, 1941 as the switch is turned at the opening of the Grand Coulee Dam. Department of the Interior U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Grand Coulee Project

The Grand Coulee: Savior for Whites, Disaster for Indians

COULEE DAM, WASHINGTON – Halfway across a narrow steel bridge over America’s most powerful river, a sign announces the entrance to the Colville Indian Reservation. The sign is small and easily missed in the vast gorge that cradles the roiling Columbia River. The

Blaine Harden May 19, 1993

Al's Place in Mineola,from a 1936 Postcard marking the Texas Centennial. Willie Lewis Brown, father of Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, is third from left standing at attention in a white duck jacket. In an interview 57 years later, he said he remembered holding the tray that day. "I wanted to have something in my hand to show I was a waiter."

Willie Brown: The Early Years

Dallas, Texas-On a drizzly January morning earlier this year, a crowd of politicians and lobbyists from California jammed into the Good Street Baptist Church, a modest brick building in the heart of Dallas’s black neighborhood. The power elite of the nation’s most populous

Jim Richardson May 19, 1993