Longtime Waterloo anti-crime crusader Leon Mosley dies
Was first Black to chair a major political party in Iowa
WATERLOO — Leon Mosley was his own man.
He was a pipe-smoking, gun-toting, crime fighting outspoken force of nature. Revered by many, derided by others, he faced life on his own terms and was totally unafraid and unabashed in anything he did — on a local, state and national level.
If you didn’t like him, well, he’d tell you to bring it on. As he used to say, quoting Val Kilmer in the movie “Tombstone” as gunfighter Doc Holliday, “I’m your huckleberry.”
If you did like him, you had a friend for life. And Waterloo had a friend for life in Leon Mosley.
He passed away over the weekend after a host of health issues at age 78.
”I hope people understand Leon loved Waterloo. He loved this community. He wanted to do right by people in this community,” said Robert Smith, director of the University of Northern Iowa Center for Urban Education, who served with Mosley on the Black Hawk County Board of Supervisors.
Leon Vincent Mosley, the son of Willie and Ruth Mosley, grew up in Waterloo and was a graduate of Columbus High School, where he was a multi-sport athlete. He worked 36 years with John Deere in Waterloo, served on the Waterloo Water Works board of trustees and 16 years on the Black Hawk County Board of Supervisors.
As a county supervisor, he was the first African-American Republican to hold partisan elected office in Black Hawk County and only the second Black to serve on the county board.
He also served as co-chair of the Republican Party of Iowa for 13 years, then a record tenure. He was the first African-American to chair a major political party in Iowa. Party officials said he had become “a household name” around the state speaking at various county party events.
In addition to his duties as a county supervisor, Mosley became well known throughout the state for speaking out against crime, drugs and gun violence and also co-organized neighborhood watch programs and community action teams – beginning with his own Gates Park Neighborhood Association and spreading throughout the state.
It was in large part due to his influence that the city of Waterloo in the 1990s adopted a crime property public nuisance ordinance, growing out of a crusade he mounted against some properties in his own neighborhood which were the repeated locations of reported drug activity.
He also worked closely with local police and often served as a conduit between crime witnesses and local law enforcement. Despite receiving death threats in direct personal confrontations with drug dealers, Mosley was undaunted in his fight against gun and drug crimes. To critics he seemed, at best, quixotic, at worst, self serving. To many others, he was a hero.
Former Waterloo Police Chief Bernal Koehrsen, now retired and living in Iowa Falls, said, “When I served as the Chief of Police for the City of Waterloo, Iowa, from April 1990 to October 2000, I had a very unique relationship with Leon Mosley. Leon was a relentless crusader for peace and justice. He would frequently visit with me regarding on-going criminal activity and drug dealing in his neighborhood.
“It was his goal to rid our city of these criminals,” Koehrsen said. “He would confront them and demand that they stop their illegal activity. He was definitely a friend of the Waterloo Police Department. Many of our officers respected him and worked with him to arrest these criminals. Leon was a very unique man for whom life mattered.”
In his anti-drug crusades, Mosley worked closely with state drug law enforcement czar and former U.S. district attorney Charles Larson Sr. In 2003, when Larson’s son, Iowa state legislator and U.S. Army Reserve Maj. Charles Larson Jr. was notified his unit would be mobilized for active duty in Iraq, Mosley succeeded Maj. Larson as co-chair of the Republican Party of Iowa.
Mosley was a delegate to the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City and a speaker during President George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign appearance at Waterloo's Riverfront Stadium. Mosley was one of 30 African Americans nationwide invited to a White House conference with the president.
While not a military veteran, Mosley also pushed for a gesture to veterans which some thought was minor in scope, but which Mosley thought was important and symbolically significant.
In 2003, Supervisor Mosley proposed a partial property tax break for county residents called to active military duty after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. Due in large part to his unrelenting advocacy, the partial tax break was approved by the Black Hawk County Veteran Affairs Commission in December 2004.
Officials with the Iowa Department of Veteran Affairs said it was a precedent-setting gesture in the state. While the tax break, of up to $600, may have seemed comparatively small to some, Mosley told the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier that any amount "would never be enough for all they've done for us, when you're talking about our freedoms. This is the least I can do.” He said it sent a message to the state, the troops and their families “that we highly appreciate what they’re doing.”
Mosley also is known for his long and deep friendship through fraternal organizations with late U.S. Army Korean War-era veteran and longtime Veridian Credit Union board member Roosevelt Taylor, whom he considered a mentor.
Also in 2004, Mosley received a national peacemaker award at a U.S. Capitol ceremony in Washington from faith-based peace and pro-family groups, including the American Family Coalition and the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace, for his years of anti-drug abuse crusades around the state. In 2017, Mosley received the History Makers award from the African-American Museum of Iowa in Cedar Rapids.
When local businesses and neighborhood advocates presented him with a Hometown Hero award in 2004, Waterloo trucking company executive and U.S. Army Korean War era veteran Bob Molinaro said, "Leon has done some things that I feel, and most of us feel, are pretty damn courageous. He's been threatened. His family has been threatened. While one may not agree necessarily with what Leon does or says, there can be no doubt that his courage to do the things he does are inspiration to the rest of us."
“I’m going to miss Leon,” Robert Smith said. “He stood up to drug dealers, he stood up to people he thought were doing wrong by his people. Sometimes people misunderstood it. But I got close to Leon, had some real special conversations with him. I hope all people, all people, remember Leon for putting himself at risk sometimes for trying to do for the community. Most people talk a good game, but they’re not willing to do what Leon was willing to do. He was surely sincere about what he stood for.
“He was more than just what people read about in the newspaper and the cowboy thing,” Smith said. “He truly was a human being who wanted to do right by those less fortunate.”
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. Click on their links below to sample their work.
The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative
Pat, thanks so much for this wonderful story on Leon Mosley and his impact on the Waterloo-Cedar Falls area and, actually, the whole state of Iowa. I always loved running into him -- often at political events -- and getting his insights on current issues and life in general. I'd rate him as one of the leading Iowa characters of our era.
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