San Francisco had yet to confirm a single case of the coronavirus when @LondonBreed, the city’s 45-year-old first-term mayor, declared a state of emergency in late February.

FEBRUARY. #BlackWomenLead /1 https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/coronavirus-san-francisco-london-breed/609808/

By late January, Breed had activated San Francisco’s emergency-operations center in preparation for an outbreak—the first such move in any major city in the country.

LATE JANUARY. #BlackWomenLead
/2

Breed said that as early as January, she recognized that the federal government was not prepared to offer the needed help to boost the San Francisco’s supply of protective equipment.

JANUARY. #BlackWomenLead /3

Breed has been both calming and commanding. “She’s quite matter-of-fact about why she did what she did. She listened to the experts and she took action,” said Andrea Dew Steele, founder of Emerge America said.

“She wasn’t equivocating about her decision.” #BlackWomenLead /4

“She took incredible political heat & criticism,” @KamalaHarris said, “She had the courage to make a decision that in her gut, based on science & the research she did, told her this was the right thing to do for her people, even when others couldn’t see it yet.” #BlackWomenLead