Sam Yorty Dead At 88
By Jennifer Auther/CNN
LOS ANGELES (June 5) -- Former Los Angeles mayor Sam Yorty has died. He was 88.
Yorty had been hospitalized at UCLA Medical Center and was transferred to
Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center May 24 after suffering a stroke,
according to a statement released by Dr. Julius Woythaler, his physician.
On Wednesday Yorty was sent home on terminal care after treatments failed
to improve his condition. He died at his home at 7:45 a.m. PDT. Friday of pneumonia, Woythaler said.
Known for being anti-communist, anti-Equal Rights Amendment and anti-busing, Yorty was a gravely-voiced maverick who lost more campaigns than he won, and he ran in about 20 different political races over 45 years.
His biggest splash came in 1961, when he became mayor of Los Angeles. Political consultant Joe Cerrell described him as "the last of the big city conservative Democrats."
Celes King III, a civil rights activist, said, "Even if it was something that he violently disagreed with you on, he would listen to you carefully, and in the end, sometimes he would not make a change, or he would make a change. It was not always predictable."
KTLA anchorman Hal Fishman said, "He was a man of which there were many pros and cons. He was certainly not a passive individual. He was, on the plus side, responsible for many of the good things in Los Angeles."
Yorty supported the Los Angeles freeway system. It has been said that in Yorty's 12 years as mayor, Los Angeles grew into a metropolis.
But there was another side too. "He knew how to play the unity that represented Los Angles, and also the divisiveness that existed in Los Angeles, and let me be very blunt, I'm talking about cultural and racial differences that existed at that time, in such events as the Watts riots in 1965," Fishman said.
It was under Yorty's reign that racial tension caused Los Angeles' Watts area to erupt in flames.
In 1969, Yorty would use race to win his re-election against Tom Bradley. Los Angeles Times reporter and columnist Kenneth Reich said, "It was almost as if Yorty had mugged the city ... The only way he felt that he would win, would be to exacerbate tensions and claim that Bradley was going to be elected by a 'black block vote,' which was silly because the black population in Los Angeles back then, was only about 18 percent."
It backfired in 1973. Voters made Bradley the city's first African-American mayor, toppling Yorty.
But Yorty continued to speak out. In later years, he became a Republican, ending a lifelong affiliation with Democrats. "I think Sam would have said that he didn't leave the party, the party left him," Cerrell said.
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