I didn't want to write about Kevin de Leon's recent moves, but General John J. Pershing made me do so.

Or rather, his statue in Washington DC.

The statue stands at the World War I Memorial, a 1.75-acre park southeast of the White House. With a hat in one hand and binoculars in the other, the American icon looks out over a fountain, a map, and inscriptions that tell the story of World War I. Behind him is a wall inscribed with his name and rank. The title of Field Marshal is an honor never bestowed on a living U.S. general; it was awarded posthumously to George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant.

I happened to pass by it on my way back to my hotel after a meeting last Saturday afternoon, and the unassuming memorial was deserted. It was smaller and more deserted than the Los Angeles general's memorial in downtown Pershing Square, which the city council voted to rename from Central Park in 1918 and critics have long decried as an inadequate public space.

I'm not much of a war buff, but de Leon got me thinking about Pershing. De Leon is facing a tough re-election campaign for City Council due to his involvement in the City Hall tape leaks that transformed Los Angeles politics nearly two years ago. As my colleagues Ruben Vives and David Zarnizer reported last week, the embattled East Side resident wants to rename Pershing Square, in his district, after Biddy Mason as part of a long-overdue multimillion-dollar renovation.

In fact, I'm surprised the five-acre park has retained Pershing's name for so long. “Black Jack” led our country to victory in World War I, but his career is riddled with cancel culture taboos. He fought in the Indian Wars, participated in the brutal occupation of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War, and enforced racial segregation in the U.S. Army during World War I, despite commanding black soldiers in the American West. Pershing also infamously invaded Mexico in a futile search for Pancho Villa, a failure Mexicans still mock more than a century later.

Mason, meanwhile, is one of the city's most inspiring reinvention stories in art: former slave turned downtown landowner, philanthropist, midwife, co-founder of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles. A timeline of her life and images of her stand in Biddy Mason Memorial Park, a long concrete wall that runs from Spring Street between 3rd and 4th Avenues, roughly in the middle of what was originally Mason's homestead. But many Los Angeles residents don't know about her.

De Leon told The Times that he has been in talks with Mason descendants since early 2022 about how to publicly honor their matriarch, and he insisted his plans have nothing to do with the city council election. “There will always be cynicism,” he told The Times. “You can't change cynicism.”

But since De Leon played a starring role in the leaked tapes scandal that rocked City Hall and Los Angeles, it's hard not to think of the political irony.

Even before he joined the City Council in 2020, de Leon had positioned himself as a politician whose blatant ambition and yearning for public acclaim were reminiscent of Jay Gatsby or Donald Trump. The post-leak situation only reinforced that perception, but he's treated it as if it were a blip in his career. He refused to resign despite calls from the streets to the White House, and he spent hundreds of thousands of public dollars to send mailings to constituents ostensibly about city services but that happened to have his name on them. And yet de Leon and former City Council member Gil Cedillo (who was recorded on tape along with former City Council Speaker Nuri Martinez and former Los Angeles County Labor Federation president Ron Herrera) are still suing the couple who they claim illegally recorded their conversations, claiming their reputations have been irreparably damaged.

De Leon wasn’t known for trumpeting black issues or history during his time in Sacramento, his failed 2018 senatorial campaign, or his first two years as a city councilman. Not surprising, since his district’s voters are overwhelmingly Latino. But are we now supposed to believe that De Leon, out of goodwill, wants to be a champion for the long-overlooked black pioneers of Los Angeles? Mind you, the tape ruined his career because it showed him mocking black political power as a Wizard of Oz-like illusion, accusing former city councilman Mike Bonin of publicly displaying his black son like a luxury handbag, and not uttering a word when Martinez called the child a “nigger.” Negrito And he likened him to a little monkey.

His move to honor Mason, while ultimately righteous, seems politically manipulative. And I'm not alone in that. The Rev. Robert R. Shaw II of First AME Church was scheduled to attend the Juneteenth press conference at Pershing Square where de Leon announced his renaming plan, but declined. Post to Instagram While he expressed support for the main cause, he felt there were “ulterior motives that were at odds with my values.”

This is the second time in less than a year that de Leon has attended a memorial to a Black Los Angeles legend. In September, he attended the dedication of Willis O. Tyler Plaza at the intersection of 2nd and Spring Streets, just a block from Mason's house. Tyler was a lawyer who unsuccessfully represented Black families whose land along Manhattan Beach was taken from them in the 1920s. That same land, now known as Bruce Beach, made headlines when Los Angeles County returned it in 2022 to the descendants of the original owners (who sold it to the county last year).

“Even when, as a society or as individuals, we stray from our values ​​and principles, heroes like Willis O. Tyler help guide us, center us, and get us back on track to adhere to the values ​​that make us stronger as a society and as individuals,” de Leon said at the naming ceremony.

Biddy Mason.

(Seber Center for Western History)

Maybe de Leon has really made amends, and I'm just being cynical. I'd like to speak with him about the recent interest in black history in Los Angeles, but he and his staff have consistently declined my interview requests for reasons known only to them. So when I returned home from Washington on Sunday afternoon, before the Los Angeles Press Club awards ceremony at the Biltmore across the street, I strolled through Pershing Square and gave myself some reflection.

The stairs leading inside smelled of urine. MS-13 tags had defaced the base of the century-old Doughboy statue, erected for Independence Day on July 4. One of three plaques originally dedicated to Pershing was missing from its pillar. Young people and families braved it anyway, planning a fun-filled afternoon.

The general's most famous words, written in his 1931 memoirs, came to mind: “An effective leader can extract efficient service from the weakest soldiers, but an incompetent leader can demoralize the best soldiers.”

Mr. de Leon seems to be taunting critics into opposing the Biddy Mason bill. Well, he's the type of politician who introduces feel-good bills that make any reasonable person want to oppose them.