London Breed

Even today, as president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and candidate for mayor in one of America’s most vibrant cities, London Breed says she still frequently stands in disbelief, finding herself at events alongside celebrated political leaders, titans of industry and celebrities.

Those are the times when, she says, she’s thinking: “From where I came … if you only knew what I had to go through to get here.”

Because in her heart, Breed says with a smile, “I’m ’hood’’ — a product of the tough Plaza East public housing project in the city’s Western Addition. And one who still carries the scars of being raised in poverty by her grandmother. The 43-year-old acknowledges, gratefully, that in a family that has seen its share of tragedy — including a brother in prison, a sister dead of a drug overdose — she miraculously managed to beat the odds.

For that, the woman who was catapulted to the national spotlight late last year — leading a shocked city following the sudden death of Mayor Ed Lee — credits the adult role models who boosted her up. They include a tough, churchgoing grandmother, Comelia Brown; her no-nonsense Galileo High School counselor, Susan Crevillo; and her longtime mentor, then-San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris.

But those who know Breed say there was also her own iron will to succeed — and to grab on to the critical lifelines that would keep her from becoming just another all-too-familiar inner-city statistic.

“She has been able to navigate the really difficult hurdles in her life … and she just has this sense of strength and resilience … a spark that is really compelling,’’ says longtime adviser and friend Debbie Mesloh, who has also long served as a key adviser to Harris. And, like Harris, she says, Breed is “tenacious, determined ... extremely focused’’ and possessed of “an amazing dignity.”

Breed says she never envisioned herself in politics, but “I was watching people like Kamala Harris,’’ then the city’s DA, “and I thought, ‘Whoa, you can be in politics and stay true to who you are as a person.’”

After serving on the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and the San Francisco Fire Commission, Breed made a successful 2012 run for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. “I never looked back,’’ she says.

Breed’s spot as a rising star of Democratic politics in California was cemented when — as president of the board of supervisors — she became acting mayor, the city’s first African-American woman in the top spot, following Lee’s sudden death from a heart attack in late 2017.

But San Francisco’s notoriously competitive politics ruled: Little more than a month later, fellow supervisors made the controversial decision to appoint an interim “caretaker” mayor, Mark Farrell, to serve until the June election.

Breed has earned her share of critics. Some say she’s too blunt and plain-spoken. Others suggest she’s too business-friendly, in a city that is among the country’s most liberal bastions.

The former community organizer knows she’s ruffled some feathers. “When you grow up like I did, you don’t sugarcoat anything,” she says. But in her tool chest, she says, are the hard lessons that served her on the streets and will serve a challenged city: how to mend fences, get and give a hand up, and bring together people from all walks of life.

Today, some of the people who lived alongside her in the projects are at work helping her campaign. Breed says they, like her, “didn’t come from wealth or power … but they’re excited and proud — and they want to be part of this.” — Carla Marinucci

Headshot by Jeff Chiu/AP Photo. Story photo by Jeff Chiu/AP Photo.