An ongoing illustrative history study
This piece originally posted 11/5/2022
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As we head into a monumentally critical election, permit me to share with you the story of L. (Lawrence) Douglas Wilder, the first-ever candidate for which I ever voted after turning eighteen (which I guess makes it pretty easy to deduce my current age). Born in Richmond, Virginia in 1931, Wilder began his education in a racially segregated elementary school. In 1951 he graduated from Virginia Union University and then served in the Korean War, where he earned a Bronze Star. After the war he graduated from Howard University Law School and later established his own firm: Wilder, Gregory and Associates.
In 1969 Wilder was elected to a seat on the Virginia state legislature, the first Black person to do so in that state since Reconstruction. He retained that seat for 16 years and was then elected Lieutenant Governor of Virginia in 1985. In 1989 he ran for Governor and narrowly won (50.2% of the vote), becoming the U.S.'s first-ever elected Black governor --and in a Southern state, no less. A Democrat but holding a reputation as a "fiscal conservative," Wilder's time in office was mostly unremarkable, highlighted by gun control and transportation initiatives --the latter involving a successful lobbying of Congress to allocate federal highway money to serve the explosive residential and office growth in Northern Virginia in the early 1990s. In May 1990 Wilder ordered state agencies and universities to divest themselves of any investments in South Africa because of its policy of apartheid, making Virginia the first Southern state to take such an action.
Wilder did declare his candidacy for the 1992 Democratic Party presidential nomination, but shortly withdrew before the primaries began. As Virginia limits its governors to single terms, Wilder left office in 1994. In 2004 he was elected mayor of his beloved Richmond, serving in that role until 2008.
Governor Wilder's extremely narrow victory in 1989 brings me back to a fundamental point: if you have not already done so by mail or through early voting, please make sure you get to the polls this coming Tuesday. I'm not underselling it when I say that democracy itself is very much on the line here --not just in Mr. Wilder's beloved state of Virginia but everywhere. Make sure you are registered, make a plan --AND a backup plan-- to get to your local polling place this Tuesday, and vote.
https://www.vote.org/am-i-registered-to-vote/
Don't let anyone scare, intimidate, or disillusion you from doing so. It really is that important. Thank you my friends.
Next page - Lesson 109: Roy Campanella