Kappa Alpha Psi Grand Polemarch Tom Bradley Was the First Black Mayor of Los Angeles

Did you know that Tom Bradley, the first Black mayor of Los Angeles and the longest-serving mayor in the city’s history, was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.? Bradley joined the fraternity as a student at UCLA in 1938 and rose to lead it nationally, serving as the 18th Grand Polemarch, the fraternity’s highest office, from 1964 to 1967.

Thomas Bradley was born on December 29, 1917, in Calvert, Texas, the son of sharecroppers and the grandson of enslaved people. His family joined the Great Migration west, moving to Los Angeles when he was seven, where he was raised by a single mother on Central Avenue. A gifted student and athlete, Bradley starred on the track team and earned an athletic scholarship to UCLA, where he helped break the color barrier in collegiate sports.

In 1940, Bradley left UCLA to join the Los Angeles Police Department, one of only a few hundred Black officers on a force of thousands. He experienced the era’s discrimination firsthand, including a policy that barred Black and white officers from riding together, and he channeled it into reform, founding the LAPD’s first community relations unit. He rose to lieutenant, then the highest rank a Black officer could attain, while attending law school at night. After passing the bar, he retired from the force to practice law.

Bradley’s career in public service began in 1963, when he was elected the first Black member of the Los Angeles City Council. In 1969, he ran for mayor and narrowly lost to the incumbent after a racially charged campaign. He tried again in 1973, and this time he won, becoming the first Black mayor of Los Angeles and the first African American to lead a major American city with an overwhelmingly white population.

Bradley governed Los Angeles for an unprecedented five terms, from 1973 to 1993, building a broad coalition of Black, Latino, Jewish, Asian American, and white voters. Under his leadership, the city transformed its downtown, expanded its airport, and hosted the acclaimed and financially successful 1984 Summer Olympics. Tom Bradley died on September 29, 1998, at the age of 80. His name still marks the international terminal at LAX, a fitting tribute to a life that embodied the Kappa Alpha Psi motto, “Achievement in Every Field of Human Endeavor.”