I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

But I will bear true faith and allegiance to the sea that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.

So help me God, it's a help me God.

So help me God.

Welcome to the oath. I'm Chuck Rosenberg and I am honored to be your host for another thoughtful conversation with a fascinating guest.

Tony Williams grew up as one of eight children in the Los Angeles home of Lewis and Virginia Williams.

Adopted at the age of four by the Williams family, Tony had a self-described circuitous path that took him from the Air Force to Yale College and then to Harvard Law School.

Tony had a deep background in public policy and financial control issues but a relatively brief connection to the District of Columbia as its first chief financial officer.

In that role he rescued the city from fiscal ruin. In 1998, Tony was quite literally drafted to run for mayor.

Remarkably, he won two terms as mayor and led Washington DC from the depths of overwhelming deficits and entrenched mismanagement to the heights of financial stability and civic success.

Tony Williams was one of the best and most successful mayors in US history. He has a deep appreciation for the virtues of cities, a clear plan for how to run a complex enterprise and a deep reverence for public service.

Tony Williams, welcome to the earth.

Pleasure to be here Chuck. Great program up until this point.

Well, it may well be a great program even after this point.

Well, okay, we'll see. But happy to be here and I've listened to the show. Wonderful guests. Great program. Proud of you.

Thank you, my friend. Tell me where you grew up.

I grew up in what is called the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It's probably one of the oldest neighborhoods in L.A.

and it became in the 50s and African American neighborhood. So the West Adams neighborhood really changed after the ruling by the Supreme Court Shelley versus Scramer.

All of our deeds of houses, homes that we own have these various clauses in them that are called covenants and servitudes.

And under the law, they can do a lot of different things. They can say you can't have bikes in the driveway.

You can't keep your garage door open all different things purely constitutional. But one thing you can't do that Supreme Court ruled in 1948 was you can't in one of these clauses restrict the property as to race.

Now it would be broader than simply race, but then it was race and that was what Shelley versus Scramer was about.

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