"Willie Lewis Brown Jr.  (born March 20, 1934[1]) is an American politician of the Democratic Party. Brown served over 30 years in the California State Assembly, spending 15 years as its speaker and later served as the 41st mayor of San Francisco, the first African American to do so. Under current California term-limits law, no Speaker of the California State Assembly will be permitted to have a longer tenure than Brown's.[2] The San Francisco Chronicle called Brown ""one of San Francisco's most notable mayors"" who had ""celebrity beyond the city's boundaries."" Brown served as San Francisco mayor from January 8, 1996 until January 8, 2004. His tenure was marked by a significant increase in real estate development, public works, city beautification and other large-scale city projects. He presided over the ""dot-com"" era at a time when San Francisco's economy was rapidly expanding. Brown presided over the city's most diverse administration with more Asian-Americans, women, Latinos, gays and African-Americans than his predecessors.[3] He increased funding of Muni by tens of millions of dollars and ended the city's policy of punishing people for feeding the homeless."
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