Stepping inside London Breed’s San Francisco apartment, you instantly feel her connection to generations of family that she says are bonded both by blood and by love.
“I remember this day when I took this picture,” she points at a photo of her kindergarten self. “I remember crying because I didn’t want to wear this shirt. Because I was wearing this shirt almost every day. So, it was like, ‘I want to wear a different shirt.’ I mean, even at five, I was a piece of work. I didn’t understand we didn’t have it to buy a different shirt it was like you’re going to wear what you have.”
She was raised by her grandmother Comelia, whose impact can be felt in each part of the mayor’s home which she’s rented for several years.
“Photos, if we were lucky enough to take any, you know it was a big deal, because now you have them on your cameras, but I don’t have a lot of pictures from when I was a kid,” she explained. “Because we didn’t have money for that.”