Stockton council candidate never forgot where he came from

STOCKTON — While Michael Tubbs was winning over Oprah Winfrey, interning at the White House and picking up a Stanford degree, he kept a close eye on home.

Now the 22-year-old, who fought to make it out of the rough part of the city, has returned — and he’s running for City Council.

On a recent Saturday at campaign headquarters, Tubbs grabbed a piece of cold pizza and posed for photos with 13-year-old twins Selena and Sabrina and 12-year-old Alise — ignoring the advice of political consultants who have told him to avoid being in pictures with children because it emphasizes his youth. (He did, however, grow a mustache.)

The girls’ foster mother, Francis Hilliard, looked on in serious appraisal.

Over the years she’s raised 25 children. She’s fought for a public swimming pool to stay open during the hot delta summers (“still working on that”) and served in numerous community organizations.

She’s walking precincts for Tubbs.

“My husband and I are underwater on our house — like everyone else,” Hilliard said. “The city is bankrupt. The gangs are getting more violent. What else are you going to do but get out the door and be very active in helping this young man change things?”

When Tubbs launched his campaign last spring, this city’s old guard said he didn’t have a chance. He was too young, too inexperienced and didn’t know the right players. A tete-a-tete with the talk-show queen might raise his profile, but it wasn’t going to sway the vote in this working-class city.

Then Tubbs won his June primary by 14 percentage points. In the history of Stockton, there’s only been one candidate who lost the nonpartisan citywide November election after winning the district vote.

If he wins Tuesday’s election, said longtime Stockton political columnist Michael Fitzgerald, the big question becomes: “Can he effect change, or is Stockton where a promising young man’s dreams go to die?”

Times are dark in this port city of almost 300,000.

In June, it became the biggest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy protection. There have been 62 homicides this year, surpassing the city’s record of 58 in 2011. Violent crime is spreading into leafy neighborhoods that once were spared the gunfire of the urban core.

The violence is not new to many of the people supporting Tubbs. Patrick Martin, 18, a polite young man who works the candidate’s phone bank, went to the funerals of two friends who were shot this year.

“It almost didn’t faze him. Which was the scariest part,” said Tubbs’ field manager, Lange Luntao, a 22-year-old Harvard graduate who was also raised in Stockton.

Tubbs grew up on the south side of the city, thinking gunfire was just a part of life.

“I didn’t even know I was from a bad neighborhood until I left and went to Stanford,” he said. “I had to get away to see this isn’t normal.”

Tubbs was 12 when he first met his father, a man in a prison jumpsuit. When Tubbs asked him what he was in for, his father said that for a black man it was either prison or death.

Young Tubbs walked out vowing his life would be different.

At 15, he said, he came home from school one day to find his mother sobbing. She’d been turned down again for a promotion at her clerical job because she didn’t have a college degree. Tubbs held his mother and made a promise to her, and himself, that lack of an education would never hold him back.

In high school, an essay he wrote recalling those moments won first place in a contest judged by novelist Alice Walker.

Despite that honor and a 4.3 grade-point average in an advanced studies program, Tubbs’ high school counselors suggested he apply only to nearby Sacramento State or a community college. He was accepted to Stanford with a full scholarship.

“I’m figuring I am going to be surrounded by all these national scholars, and I better just listen and keep my mouth shut. But then I saw there’s no monopoly on intelligence,” Tubbs said. “Don’t get me wrong, I met some smart people at Stanford. But my peers in Stockton were just as smart and imaginative and more able to navigate.”

Tubbs started speaking up in class, adding the stories of people he knew to discussions of poverty, education and government.

“From the beginning, he was a standout Stanford student,” said Jan Barker Alexander, associate dean of student affairs. “But he wore Stockton. He never forgot, or let anyone else forget, where he came from.”

When Winfrey brought girls from her Leadership Academy in South Africa to Stanford in April, Tubbs — who had studied in South Africa — led a tour.

The Stanford dean mentioned to Winfrey that Tubbs was campaigning for City Council in his hometown.

“Oprah asked Michael about Stockton, and Michael started talking about the city with such love. He didn’t downplay the problems, but it was with a passion like a parent speaking of their child,” Barker Alexander said.

A political science professor then asked Winfrey if she ever got involved in campaigns. Winfrey said she’d only supported three candidates: Barack Obama, Cory Booker, now the mayor of Newark, N.J, “and now, Councilman Tubbs.”

Her check for $10,000 came two weeks later.

“I’m grateful for every opportunity Stanford gave me,” Tubbs said while campaigning. “But sometimes it was hard for me to be standing under palm trees, chatting with Oprah, having a great old time, when people I cared about at home were being shot at.”

Tubbs finished ahead of District 6 incumbent Dale Fritchen in the primary. But they will square off again because, under Stockton’s election rules, the top two candidates from each district compete in the general election.

Fritchen, the lone councilman to vote against the city’s filing for bankruptcy protection, said Tubbs’ personal story was inspiring, but that didn’t make him the best candidate.

“This city is in the midst of a great crisis. It’s not the time for on-the-job training,” said Fritchen, 52. “And,” he added, “everybody has a story.”

Even Fritchen. He was homeless at 17, slept in a church parking lot and worked his way through college. He’s a supervisor over investigations of child abuse in San Joaquin County.

“Stockton has more than its fair share of challenges,” he said.”Resilience is a common trait here.”

One week after winning the Stockton primary, Tubbs returned to Stanford for finals. He graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Policy, Organization and Leadership Studies.

Since then, he’s been out walking neighborhoods.

Giving speeches is easy, Tubbs said. The hard part is talking to voters one-on-one. Feeling overcome with shyness each time he goes to a house, Tubbs mumbles a quick prayer before knocking.

At one door, he said, a boy — maybe 9 — peeked out as his mother spoke with Tubbs from behind a thick metal screen.

She told the candidate that her family slept in the middle of the living room floor, huddled together, because of neighborhood gunfire. She said the gun smoke sometimes was so thick that it sets off her son’s asthma. The fear, she said, leaves him anxious. Still, he always makes honor roll at school. He loves science.

“I can’t stop telling that story. It hit me hard,” Tubbs said.

“That, right there, is Stockton — the good and the bad. A boy with his insides twisted up … but still studying and getting good grades.”

diana.marcum@latimes.com