Brown Blames Parties’ Failure to Help Blacks

Former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, remained in Los Angeles on Friday and hit hard at what he said was the inability of both political parties to create more job opportunities for blacks.

Brown had flown here Thursday after interrupting his speaking appearances in the Midwest. He was expected to return over the weekend to Indiana, which will hold its primary election on Tuesday.

Making the rounds of local television stations, Brown was asked about the slow response to the rioting by Los Angeles police and California National Guardsmen.

He replied with some sarcasm that the government’s response was 27 years too late.

“There should have been a much earlier response to the Watts riot (in 1965),” he said, referring to what he termed government neglect of the economic lot of urban blacks and other minorities.

“There was no reaction to Watts in the form of jobs and wages,” he said. “A major social disaster is at our doorstep. It’s imperative that we invest in our cities.”

President Bush and members of Congress should focus more on creating economic opportunities for young black males of whom “40% are born in abject poverty with no chance for the American dream,” he said.

“There is a systematic, institutionalized injustice across the country,” Brown told reporters. “It’s a Democratic and Republican problem.”

Attacking Bush’s priorities, Brown declared that “the President wants to spend $25 billion to bail out the S&Ls.; Well, we had better bail out the families.”

Lessons about the root causes of the Watts riot were spelled out in the McKone Commission report following that disorder, he said.

“But our political leaders ignored the report. Congress and the President have to respond in a way very different from what they have so far,” Brown said.