Monday, May 13, 2024
San Francisco activist, Elouise Morris Westbrook, traced her roots back to Gatesville, which she always considered home.
Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, the longest-serving female senator in history, passed away last week at the age of 90.
Feinstein had close ties to a Gatesville woman named Elouise Morris Westbrook. Most will ask, just who was Elouise Westbrook?
Westbrook started from humble beginnings. She was born in Gatesville on April 20, 1915, the daughter of William Morris and Dora Davenport Morris. During her childhood in Gatesville, she attended a two-room school called Carver School which was created for African-American students. The school only had two teachers – one for elementary and one for high school.
“It was all Black, but it was a nice school,” she would later say.
Westbrook dropped out of school at the age of 16, married, and moved to Waco. In the 1940s, she moved to California where she settled in San Francisco residing in the South of Market community. She would later obtain her GED and take several college courses.
“I thought I was going to learn how to work with poor people,” she said. “I never had one course on how to work with poor people. I learned how to work with big corporations. Well, I laughed about it and cried about it, because I really wanted to help my people.”
She soon became known as an advocate for the poor and the working class and sought to bring better housing and health care to those in need. Her boldness in speaking seemed to be her greatest asset. “I had a big mouth, so I did most of the talking,” Westbrook once said.
Perhaps her most well-known accomplishment came in 1973 when she led a delegation to Washington, D.C., to fight for badly-needed funds regarding housing in the Bayview Hunter’s Point community of San Francisco. Where city officials had failed, her tenacity was credited with San Francisco receiving a $30 million grant from the Nixon administration.
On two different occasions, Westbrook was honored with an “Elouise Westbrook Day” for her service to the city. The first was in 1983 from San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein and the second in 2006 by Mayor Gavin Newsom.
Westbrook also received a certificate of commendation from the U.S. Senate, signed by her good friend, Senator Feinstein. “She’s my white daughter and I’m her Black mamma,” Westbrook remarked when describing their close relationship.
As the former president of the San Francisco Housing Commission and a member of the Mayor’s Committee for Community Development, Westbrook accompanied Feinstein to Abidjan, Africa (the Ivory Coast) as a member of the U.S. delegation and a representative for the City of San Francisco.
In 1989, after decades of service, Westbrook traded in the fast-paced life of San Francisco for the slower pace of her hometown of Gatesville.
After returning to her roots, she was quoted as saying, “Everybody was really nice to me. The policemen would often stop by and have coffee with me. I will always think of Gatesville as my home.”
A few years after moving back to Gatesville, Westbrook returned to San Francisco to be closer to her doctors and specialists.
In 2007, it was announced that a clinic and apartment building would be named in her honor and would be called Westbrook Plaza. The apartments were designed to provide homes for 45-50 families, and the clinic was estimated to serve more than 10,000 patients per year. Construction of the $12-million Westbrook Plaza got underway in 2008.
During the dedication of the plaza, a ceremony was held to honor the 92-year-old Westbrook for her 50 years of service to the city in bringing affordable housing and health care to the poor.
“It was beautiful,” she said about the ceremony. “Senator Feinstein walked beside me. It was quite an honor for a little old Black woman from Gatesville, Texas.”
Elouise Morris Westbrook passed away in San Francisco on September 13, 2011, at the age of 96. She was buried next to her husband, Isaac, at the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, California.
Upon learning of her death, Dianne Feinstein issued the following statement about her friend and colleague, “Mrs. Westbrook is a legend – she fought for the rights and injustices for not only her people but other groups. An advocate for those in need of food, shelter, jobs, accessible healthcare – she was a VOICE throughout the city to help them speak up for their rights. This dynamic lady organized people to rally. She was known throughout the San Francisco Bay area, state, and nationwide.”
