Billy G. Mills, among first Black politicians elected to LA City Council, dies
Political pioneer Billy G. Mills, one of the first black council members elected in Los Angeles, has died.
Billy G. Mills, a civil rights leader who was among the first blacks to serve on the Los Angeles City Council, has died.
Mills, 96, died on June 27 after a long illness, his son, James Edward Mills, confirmed. The officer died peacefully at his home in Leimert Park, his son said.
James, a journalist and founder of The Joy Trip Project, made a memorial for his father online, where he shared a photo of his father shaking hands with Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. He said the image highlights “the importance of those who work behind world events that shape our reality.”
“He was a man who went to work every day, a man who expected his children to tell the truth, keep their word, and finish what they started,” he wrote about his father. “He believed that integrity was something that made you invisible.”
Mills worked as a civil rights attorney before being elected to the LA City Council in 1963 to represent District 8, the same year Tom Bradley was elected to District 10. They were the first two Black men elected to the City Council, succeeding Gilbert Lindsay, the first black man appointed to fill Edward Roybal’s city council seat. Lindsay was also a close family friend, James said.
James described his father as a humble man who remained active and engaged even after leaving office. As a young child, he heard stories years ago about his father’s influence and legacy. It wasn’t until later that he learned that his father was officiating at Muhammad Ali’s wedding.
Before his father died in June, a man who worked in the city parking lot when his father worked at City Hall described Mills as “one of my favorite people there” after Mills came to help following an incident involving police.
“There are a lot of people in Los Angeles who still think a lot about my father,” said James.
James said his work was greatly influenced by his parents.
“They taught me that the pursuit of justice and the desire to understand are, at their heart, the same journey: to see people fully, to listen carefully, and to leave the world better than you found it,” he wrote.
Mills was part of the first wave of Black politicians in LA, paving the way for more Black representation at the city and state levels, according to Alison Rose Jefferson, a historian who wrote the book “Living the California Dream: African American Leisure Sites during the Jim Crow Era.”
“That was a really historic moment in Los Angeles,” Jefferson said. Mills, he said, “was very vocal about civil rights and human rights.”
President John Kennedy, leaving the Hollywood Palladium after addressing a breakfast for 3,000 Democratic women, is greeted by a group of Los Angeles black leaders and office holders. He shakes hands with Thomas Bradley. To Bradley’s left, only his head showing, is Billy G. Mills. (AP Photo)
(Anonymous/AP)
As part of the Council, he helped lead the city after the Watts Rebellion in 1965. He was elected by his colleagues to serve as acting mayor and president pro tem multiple times, according to UCLA, which honored him in 2003 with a Community Service Award. He also brought street lights and sidewalks to his district, installing them throughout South LA
“As he was a good example for black politicians, he was also one of the most respected black judges in California, lawyers and judges who continue to emulate,” said the university. “Billy Mills is one of UCLA’s greatest treasures.”
In 1972, Mills ran unsuccessfully for Congress. When he reached the limits and left the city council in 1974, he was appointed to the Los Angeles Superior Court by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, despite their opposing politics, James said.
Mills was born in Waco, Tex., where he grew up and attended school. After graduating high school, he came to Los Angeles and attended Compton College before transferring to UCLA. There, he became the first black graduate of UCLA Law School. He met his wife Rubye at UCLA, and they had five children. Rubye died in 2018.
Mills is survived by five children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Dr. The Rubye and Judge Billy G. Mills Scholarship at UCLA supports undergraduate students interested in studying education or law.
