Gilbert W. Lindsay

American politician

Gilbert William Lindsay (November 29, 1900 – December 28, 1990) was an American politician who worked his way up from Los Angeles City Hall janitor to become the city's first black City Council member and one of its most powerful elected officials. He helped fashion downtown Los Angeles into a major metropolitan center but was accused of turning his back on the people in his district who elected him to 27 years on the city's governing body from 1963 to 1990.

Lindsay was born on November 29, 1900, in Mississippi, where he worked in the cotton fields as a youth. He left Mississippi as a teenager and enrolled in a school in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He then moved to Arizona, where he joined the Army and served in the 10th Cavalry and the 25th Infantry. As part of an Army program, he studied business administration at the University of Arizona. He moved to Los Angeles in 1923 or 1924 and became a City Hall janitor with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. He took a civil service exam for a clerkship, and he was given a basement office because, he said, his superiors did not want him to sit with whites. He took classes in governmental administration and political science at the University of Southern California and in business administration at UCLA during the 25 years he worked for the department. About his years as a janitor, the Los Angeles Times quoted him as saying, "I used to scrub toilets for the city of Los Angeles with a mop—that was my job [ ] I had the lowest job you can give a human being." He was often criticized for supporting Downtown "at the expense of the southern portion of his district." Morals. The 9th District councilman opined that San Fernando Valley communities would "not be having problems with topless bottomless bars if moral levels matched those" of his Downtown Los Angeles and South L. A. district. "We have clean minded people and a clean district," he said. "All this junk is out there where the affluent aristocrats, the holier than thou people live." Council members. Interviewed by Los Angeles Times reporter Janet Clayton for an article about relationships among City Council members, Lindsay noted in 1984 that "All the council members get along fine when they need a vote. Otherwise, they can't stand each other, or I should say, don't genuinely like each other. They each have their own agenda, you know." He said he has a "simple formula" for deciding issues: "When I give my word on a vote, I haven't reneged, least not more than a half dozen times in 20 years. I vote my district, then my friends, and, what's good for me." Skid Row. The Times noted that Lindsay, "whose district includes Skid Row, has always favored upscale commercial and residential development in the area, the last big undeveloped stretch of downtown Los Angeles." In 1987 the councilman, along with a group of business owners objected to putting more residential and treatment centers in Skid Row on the grounds they were "drawing the homeless, including the mentally ill" to an area that had "great potential for commercial growth."

In April 1992, a Superior Court jury ruled that Juanda Chauncie, Lindsay's 40 year old girlfriend, had taken advantage of the councilman to gain control of his money and property. The five woman, seven man panel ruled that Chauncie had used undue influence over him and awarded $235,000 to Lindsay's stepson and estate. Attorney Johnnie Cochran's firm represented the estate.