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A Literal Look-Back at London Breed
San Francisco’s first Black female mayor, in pictures
Today’s inauguration of Daniel Lurie as the new mayor of San Francisco marks the end of London Breed’s six and a half years in that role. As a long-time San Franciscan and sometime event photographer, I have taken a number of photos of Breed and uploaded them to Wikimedia Commons, as part of my efforts to improve the representation of marginalized people on Wikipedia.¹ Though our politics differ, I thank Breed for her service as our city’s first Black female mayor.
Before becoming mayor, London Breed served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and was elected board president in January 2015. The first photos I took of her were during this time. I attended and photographed numerous protests and rallies in the two years following the November 2016 election of Donald Trump, and Breed spoke at several of these events.
A Day Without a Woman was an international strike action organized to coordinate with International Women’s Day, on March 8, 2017. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors had a female majority at that time, with board president Breed at the head.
A year later, Breed spoke at the March For Our Lives San Francisco, part of a national day of action to protest gun violence in U.S. schools. Breed was at this time in between mayorships, having automatically become Acting Mayor following the December 2017 death of Mayor Ed Lee, but ousted the following month by the Board of Supervisors in favor of Mark Farrell until a special mayoral election could be held in June 2018.
That June, the newly elected Mayor Breed spoke at a Families Belong Together rally, held during Pride Weekend in advance of a larger, nationwide action on June 30. Both events protested against the…
