Activist broke down barriers in male-dominated politics
The phone rang in Ann Eliaser’s shabby Atlantic City, N.J., hotel room.
When she picked up the receiver, Martin Luther King Jr., was on the other end.
Ann, he said, please vote with me.
It was 1964, and Eliaser was a California delegate at the Democratic National Convention. King wanted her to support the effort to seat the delegates from the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, a non-exclusionary alternative to the state’s all-white contingent.
Eliaser would, hours later, buck her party’s leadership to vote with King, prompting a fellow delegate to point his cane at her from across the room and declare her a “stupid-ass woman.”
It was a seminal moment for the San Francisco political activist and civic volunteer, one of several in a long life filled with a cast of characters now found in history books.
“I was trouble and not famous for playing follow the leader,” she told her daughter in a letter describing her vote.
Eliaser died Oct. 24 at home in San Francisco. She was 92.
She should never have become a Democrat, said her daughter, Mary Powell.
Born on Sept. 24, 1926, she came from the San Francisco establishment, a fairly well-todo family with a solid Republican footing — “and she went left,” Powell said.
She became active in politics in 1952 and would later serve in increasingly influential positions within the
state’s Democratic Party, including as national committeewoman for California.
Eliaser stood out as a women in the predominantly male world of politics in the 1950s and ’60s, clad in doublestrand pearls and black stiletto pumps, handbag on her arm, while keeping pace with the likes of Harry Truman.
But she was a force, opposing the Vietnam War and the death penalty when it wasn’t popular to do so.
“Her commitment to what she believed was correct was the very core of her being,” Powell said. “The most important moments in her life were all in defiance of conventional wisdom.”
Such beliefs led her to campaign for several presidential candidates as well as state and local elected officials, some successful, others famous failures.
She was the national women’s chair for her friend Eugene McCarthy during his presidential campaign in 1968 and co-chair of San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto’s campaigns.
She was also an early backer of Jimmy Carter, campaigning with him in the beginning stages of his run for president even as most people were asking, “Jimmy who?”
In her oral history compiled by UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, Eliaser described traveling with Carter before he was an official candidate, sitting with the former Georgia governor in airports, watching him write thank you notes during his down time.
Perhaps her biggest political disappointment was former Gov. Adlai Stevenson’s inability to capture the Democratic Party’s nomination for president at the national convention in 1960 in Los Angeles. Sen. John Kennedy received the nomination.
Eliaser, in her oral history, recalled sitting on the grass with Stevenson, whom she considered a close friend, as he mulled his fate. He confided that he hadn’t really wanted the nod, a confession she believed to be only half true.
Over the years, her political roles offered Eliaser a place among the country’s power brokers and put her on a first-name basis with presidents.
At a 1967 state dinner for Nepal’s royalty, she rescued President Lyndon Johnson from an awkward-silence conversation with Queen Ratna before the guests assembled to watch famed guitarist Charlie Byrd perform.
In later decades, Eliaser played more local roles, working to save Lake Tahoe and overturn the death penalty.
She also served on the San Francisco permit board, at one point in 1972, voting against a request by McDonald’s to build three more “hamburger stands,” in the city, which already had two.
She didn’t believe the company paid employees enough, and the stands caused too much traffic.
The proposed McDonald’s at Hyde and California streets, Eliaser said, “was the worst corner in town to put a motorized business.”
Eliaser also founded Compass Associates, a professional consulting firm specializing in fundraising for nonprofit, health and education institutions as well as political candidates.
She was married twice, first to Lionel Alanson Jr., a meat company president, who died in 1971, and then to Dr. Maurice Eliaser, a cardiologist, who died in 2001.
A San Francisco resident her whole life, Eliaser played a very big role in a time dominated by men, Powell said.
Her commitment to her community outweighed society’s expectations of what a woman was supposed to do, although it surprised no one that she ran campaign headquarters, but showed up early to tidy the office, Powell said.
That drive to serve landed her in the midst of historically significant places and people and moments in time, giving her a front-row seat and supporting role in one of the country’s most tumultuous eras.
“What a life,” her daughter said.
In addition to her daughter, who lives in San Francisco, Eliaser is survived by two grandchildren and four greatgrandchildren.
A memorial service will be held on Nov. 9, at 11 a.m., at Congregation Emanu-el, 2 Lake St., San Francisco.