Ex-mayor of L.A. Bradley developed ties with Las Vegas

Former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley could remember firsthand a bleak time in Las Vegas when the casino industry treated blacks as coldly as the segregated South where he was born a sharecropper's son.

Bradley, Los Angeles' first black mayor, was a frequent visitor to Las Vegas from the 1950s, when blacks were not permitted as guests in Strip resorts, through the late '70s.

"Now I'm pleased to acknowledge that blacks can go broke at any craps table in town," Bradley joked during a March 1974 visit to Las Vegas.

"I remember coming to the (1955) opening of the Moulin Rouge (on Bonanza Road) that was in theory a new hotel for the entertainment of all people, but in fact (was) an outlet for entertainment for blacks."

Bradley, who died Tuesday at age 80 in Los Angeles, made those comments during the Human Relations Day luncheon before 600 people who had crowded into the showroom at the Union Plaza hotel-casino.

Bradley's comments came nearly three months after he had taken office by defeating incumbent Mayor Sam Yorty in late 1973. He would serve five terms a Los Angeles mayor through 1993.

The soft-spoken Bradley was for many years a go-to guy when the news media had questions about the future of blacks in local and national politics.

In a Dec. 27, 1974, Sun story, Bradley, following a speaking engagement at the Las Vegas Hilton hotel-casino, predicted that one day a black would be elected president.

In a 1979 interview at Caesars Palace hotel-casino, Bradley said again he believed that one day a black would be elected vice president, but that he was not the man for the job.

However, Bradley did try twice to become California's governor, losing in 1982 to Republican George Deukmejian by less than 1 percentage point. Four years later, Bradley was defeated more soundly, again by Deukmejian.

When asked by a Sun reporter in 1974 about the possibility of another incident like the devastating Watts riots of the late 1960s, Bradley said there always exists the possibility of civil disorder, but he did not foresee such a problem in the immediate future.

He was right. A similar incident did not occur until a jury in 1992 acquitted white L.A. police officers of pummeling black motorist Rodney King, sparking a riot that killed 53 people and caused nearly $1 billion in damage -- an incident Bradley later called the "most painful" of his life.

In September 1979, Bradley did what few mayors ever do by going to another town, in this case Las Vegas, to present a ceremonial key to his city.

Bradley traveled the 400-plus miles to Southern Nevada because then-world heavyweight boxing champion Larry Holmes was in training for a title defense at Caesars Palace and could not break away to go to Los Angeles for that honor.

"On championship boxing, we (Los Angeles) can't compare with Las Vegas," the tall, athletic Bradley, a one-time UCLA track star, told a Sun reporter during that visit. "You got it all here.

"As far as legalized gambling in California, I don't think it will ever come on the large-scale basis that you have here in Nevada."

But, Bradley also was quick to remind Las Vegans that their success hinged heavily on the actions of his constituents: "If it wasn't for us Southern Californians, and especially our citizens from Los Angeles, where would you folks be ... in Las Vegas?"

archive