Tom Bradley: The Impossible Dream

Haley, Alex

Published by Santa Monica: Roundtable, 1986

About this Item

Manuscript and correspondence for Haley's Foreword to "Tom Bradley: The Impossible Dream," by J. Gregory Payne and Scott C. Ratzan. ---- A) Typed manuscript, entitled "Mayor Tom Bradley," circa 1986; eight leaves, 8vo., ribbon copy, approximately 800 holograph corrections by Haley in pen, with innumerable excised passages not incorporated into the published text. B) Autograph letter signed "Alex Haley" to Roundtable Publishing. Dayton: May 27, 1986; single leaf, 8vo., approximately 85 words; unpublished; C) letter from Payne to Haley; typed manuscript of Payne's Afterword. D) copy of "Tom Bradley: The Impossible Dream." (Santa Monica: Roundtable Publishing, 1986). 8vo, portrait frontispiece; red leather lettered in gilt. First edition, first printing. Haley's library-stamped copy; additionally inscribed by Bradley and Ratzan ---- Having known Tom Bradley since his mayoral victory celebration in 1973, Alex Haley's reason for introducing "Tom Bradley" was personal allegiance. For Haley, his friend's rise from the sharecropping fields of Texas to become a political icon was a model for any flowering generation. Bradley had instinctively applied his energy toward academia (UCLA) and career (California bar and law enforcement), subdued stereotypic biases, and never lost sight of his private dream to be the first Black mayor of Los Angeles. ---- By coalescing a broad-based constituency, the former (first Black) police lieutenant bolstered not some but all the people, rebuilt Los Angeles into a world-class business center after the devastating Watts riot, and safeguarded the site of the 1984 summer Olympic Games. "Tom Bradley" was published in the summer of 1986, when the mayor's popularity still equaled his granite determination to accomplish more than he previously dared to dream. Bradley's record was later tainted by allegations of financial improprieties and mismanagement after the beating of Black motorist Rodney King and days of catastrophic destruction. A unique archive.

Seller Inventory # ABE-4156085220

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Tom Bradley: The Impossible Dream
• Publisher: Santa Monica: Roundtable
• Publication Date: 1986
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • African American History