Doug Wilder | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 78thMayor of Richmond | |
| In office January 2, 2005 – January 1, 2009 | |
| Preceded by | Rudy McCollum |
| Succeeded by | Dwight Jones |
| 66thGovernor of Virginia | |
| In office January 13, 1990 – January 15, 1994 | |
| Lieutenant | Don Beyer |
| Preceded by | Gerald Baliles |
| Succeeded by | George Allen |
| 35thLieutenant Governor of Virginia | |
| In office January 18, 1986 – January 13, 1990 | |
| Governor | Gerald Baliles |
| Preceded by | Richard Davis |
| Succeeded by | Don Beyer |
| Member of theVirginia Senate from the9th district | |
| In office January 12, 1972 – January 1, 1986 | |
| Preceded by | M. Patton Echols |
| Succeeded by | Benjamin Lambert |
| Member of theVirginia Senate from the30th district | |
| In office January 14, 1970 – January 12, 1972 | |
| Preceded by | J. Sargeant Reynolds |
| Succeeded by | Leroy S. Bendheim |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Lawrence Douglas Wilder (1931-01-17)January 17, 1931 (age 95) Richmond, Virginia, U.S. |
| Party | Democratic |
| Other political affiliations | Independent (1994) |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3, includingLarry |
| Education | Virginia Union University (BS) Howard University (JD) |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Branch/service |  United States Army |
| Years of service | 1951–1953 |
| Rank | Sergeant |
| Battles/wars | Korean War |
| Awards | Bronze Star Medal |
Lawrence Douglas Wilder (born January 17, 1931) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the66th governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994. He was thefirst African American to serve as governor of aU.S. state since theReconstruction era, and the first African American ever elected as governor.[a] He is currently a professor at the namesake Wilder School atVirginia Commonwealth University.
Born inRichmond, Virginia, Wilder graduated fromVirginia Union University and served in theUnited States Army during theKorean War. He established a legal practice in Richmond after graduating from theHoward University School of Law. A member of theDemocratic Party, Wilder won election to theVirginia Senate in 1969. He remained in that chamber until 1986, when he took office as theLieutenant Governor of Virginia, becoming the first African American to hold statewide office in Virginia. In the1989 Virginia gubernatorial election, Wilder narrowly defeatedRepublicanMarshall Coleman.
Wilder left the gubernatorial office in 1994, as the Virginia constitution prohibits governors from immediately seeking re-election. He briefly sought the1992 Democratic presidential nomination, but withdrew from the race before the first primaries. He also briefly ran as anindependent in the1994 Virginia Senate election before dropping out of the race. Wilder returned to elective office in 2005, when he became the first directly electedmayor of Richmond. After leaving office in 2009, he worked as an adjunct professor and was involved in planning the unrealizedUnited States National Slavery Museum.
Wilder was born on January 17, 1931, in the segregatedChurch Hill neighborhood of Richmond.[1] He is the son of Beulah Olive (Richards) and Robert Judson Wilder.[2] He is the grandson of slaves, his paternal grandparents having been enslaved inGoochland County.[3] The seventh of eight brothers and sisters, Wilder was named for the African American writersPaul Laurence Dunbar andFrederick Douglass.[4]
Wilder's father sold insurance and his mother worked as a maid. While the family was never completely destitute, Wilder recalled his early years during theGreat Depression as a childhood of "gentle poverty".[5] In 1947 Wilder graduated fromArmstrong High School where one of his fellow students was dancer and choreographerNat Horne.[6]
Wilder worked his way throughVirginia Union University, ahistorically black university, by waiting tables at hotels and shining shoes, graduating in 1951 with a degree in chemistry.[7]
Drafted into theUnited States Army during theKorean War, he volunteered for combat duty. At theBattle of Pork Chop Hill, he and two other men found themselves cut off from their unit, but they bluffed nineteenNorth Korean soldiers into surrendering, for which Wilder was awarded theBronze Star Medal. He was asergeant when he was discharged in 1953.[8]
Following the war, Wilder worked in the state medical examiner's office and pursued a master's degree in chemistry. In 1956 he changed his career plans and enteredHoward University Law School. After graduating in 1959, he established a law practice in Richmond, the Virginia capital.[9]
Wilder married Eunice Montgomery in 1958. The couple had three children before divorcing in 1978: Lynn Diana;Lawrence Douglas Jr.; and Loren Deane.[10]
Douglas Wilder had joined the Democratic Party and began his career in public office by winning a 1969special election for theVirginia State Senate from a Richmond-area district. He was the first African American elected to the Virginia Senate sinceReconstruction. A 1970 redistricting gave Wilder a predominantly African-American district, and he became a liberal in a predominantly conservative, white-majority legislature.
Wilder briefly flirted with an independent bid for theUnited States Senate in 1982. He did so after the initial favorite for the Democratic nomination,State DelegateOwen Pickett ofVirginia Beach, paid homage to theByrd Organization in announcing his bid. Angered that Pickett would praise a political machine who obstinately resisted racial integration, Wilder threatened to make an independent bid for the seat if Pickett won the nomination.[11] Pickett not only realized that Wilder was serious, but that he would siphon off enough black votes in a three-way race to hand the seat to the Republican nominee, CongressmanPaul Trible. Pickett pulled out of the race, and Wilder abandoned plans to run for the Senate.
In1985 Wilder was narrowly elected as the 35thLieutenant Governor of Virginia on aDemocratic ticket headed byAttorney GeneralGerald L. Baliles, the party's candidate for governor. Wilder was the first African American to win a statewide election in Virginia. Aware that he needed to reach the swath of the state's majority-white electorate, Wilder had undertaken a two-month "back roads" campaign tour of the state, visiting Virginia's predominantly rural central and western regions and enhancing his name recognition across the state.
In the 1989 campaign for governor of Virginia, Wilder had a comfortable lead in the last polls before the election. The unexpected closeness of the election may have been due to the Republicans' strongget out the vote efforts. Wilder had been candid about hispro-choice position in relation toabortion. Some observers believed the close election was caused by theBradley effect, and suggested that white voters were reluctant to tell pollsters that they did not intend to vote for Wilder.[b] Wilder was elected governor on November 8, 1989, defeatingRepublicanMarshall Coleman by a spread of less than half apercent. The narrow victory margin prompted arecount, which reaffirmed Wilder's election.
Douglas Wilder was sworn in on January 13, 1990, by formerU.S. Supreme Court JusticeLewis F. Powell, Jr. In recognition of his landmark achievement as the first elected African-American governor, theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People awarded Wilder theSpingarn Medal for 1990.
During his tenure as governor, Wilder worked on crime and gun control initiatives. He also worked to fund Virginia's transportation initiatives, effectively lobbying Congress to reallocate highway money to the states with the greatest needs.[13] Much residential and office development had taken place in Northern Virginia without its receiving sufficient federal money for infrastructure improvements to keep up. He also succeeded in passing state bond issues to support improving transportation. In May 1990 Wilder ordered state agencies and universities to divest themselves of any investments inSouth Africa because of its policy ofapartheid.
Wilder made a failed attempt to enter into an agreement with theWashington Redskins to build a stadium at Potomac Yard in Alexandria. Wilder and Washington Redskins ownerJack Kent Cooke had made an agreement for the move which entailed a $130 million subsidy by the state of the Virginia. However, legislators revised the agreement to reduce the cost to taxpayers by $40 million (relative to the original plan by Cooke and Wilder), which led Cooke to pull out of the agreement.[14]
During his term, Wilder carried out Virginia's law on capital punishment, although he had opposed the death penalty when he served in theVirginia Senate.[15] A total of 14 executions were carried out in the state'selectric chair, including the controversial case ofRoger Keith Coleman. In January 1994 Wilder commuted the sentence ofEarl Washington Jr., anintellectually disabled man, to life in prison based on testing of DNA evidence that raised questions about his guilt. Virginia law has strict time limits on when such new evidence can be introduced post-conviction. But in 2000, under a new governor, an STR-based DNA test led to the exclusion of Washington as the perpetrator of the murder for which he had been sentenced. He was fully exonerated by GovernorJim Gilmore for the capital murder and he was released from prison.As Virginia limits consecutive gubernatorial terms, Wilder was succeeded in 1994 byGeorge Allen.
Wilder declared himself a candidate forPresident in 1991, but withdrew beforethe primary season had ended. He briefly ran for theU.S. Senate as an independentin 1994.
Relations between Wilder and then SenatorChuck Robb became strained following Wilder's aborted 1982 senate bid, with surreptitious recordings taken by Robb's staff contributing to a long running feud between the two men.[16]
On May 30, 2004, Wilder announced his intention to run forMayor of Richmond. Until 2004, the RichmondCity Council had chosen the mayor from among its 9 members. The move to change this policy succeeded in November 2003 when voters approved a mayor-at-largereferendum, with roughly 80 percent voting in favor of the measure. Wilder was a leading proponent of the mayor-at-large proposal.
On November 2, 2004, Wilder received 79% of the vote (55,319 votes) to become the firstdirectly elected mayor of the city in sixty years. Upon winning the election, Wilder communicated his intentions to take oncorruption in the city government, issuing several ultimatums to the sitting city council before he took office. He was sworn in on January 2, 2005.
He was a member of theMayors Against Illegal Guns Coalition,[17] abipartisan group with a stated goal of "making the public safer by getting illegal guns off the streets." The Coalition was co-chaired by formerBoston MayorThomas Menino and formerNew York City MayorMichael Bloomberg.
On May 16, 2008, Wilder announced that he would not seek reelection to another four-year term as mayor.
Wilder has continued as adistinguished professor in the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs atVirginia Commonwealth University.[18] He writes occasional editorials for Virginia newspapers.
Douglas Wilder is the founder of theUnited States National Slavery Museum, a non-profit organization based in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The museum has been fundraising and campaigning since 2001 to establish a national museum of slavery in America. In June 2008 Wilder requested that the museum be granted tax exempt status, which was denied.[19] From that time, taxes on the land had not been paid and the property was at risk of being sold at auction by the city ofFredericksburg.[20]
Beset by financial problems the museum has been assessed delinquent property taxes for the years 2009, 2010, and 2011 amounting to just over $215,000.[21] The organization filed forChapter 11 Bankruptcy protection on September 22, 2011. Early in 2011 Douglas Wilder was refusing to respond to or answer any questions from either news reporters or patrons who had donated artifacts.[22]
Wilder made news in 2012 when he refused to supportBarack Obama, the nation's first black president, for another term.[23] He noted that he supported Obama in 2008, but said the president's tenure in the Oval Office thus far had been a disappointment. Wilder did not endorseMitt Romney, the Republican challenger, and later said that he hoped for an Obama victory despite having gone to a Romney fundraiser.[23]
In 2015, Wilder published an autobiography,Son of Virginia: A Life in America's Political Arena.[24]
In March 2018, Wilder filed suit against John Accordino, who was serving as the Dean of his namesake college, for harassing Wilder's assistant.[25] This led to Accordino stepping down from his position and Susan Gooden being named as the interim dean of the college and then Wilder dropping the suit 4 months after filing.[26]
In March 2019, Sydney Black filed a complaint under Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 against Wilder for sexual harassment after she claims he made sexual advances to her, which she rebuffed, and then told her later that there was no funding for her position at the Virginia Commonwealth University.[27] In July 2019, the university's independent investigator concluded that Wilder did kiss the student without her consent.[28] In response, Wilder provided a detailed rebuttal, in which he denied "non-consensual sexual contact” between Black and him.[28] In addition, he denied retaliating against her by saying her position had been eliminated.[28] Wilder also claimed the investigator ignored contradictory evidence, including his claim that Black called him eight times after the night during which he supposedly kissed her, something she presumably would not have done if she felt harassed or threatened.[28] The university planned to consider the investigator's findings and Wilder's rebuttal before deciding what action to take, if any.[28] On October 24, 2019, Wilder announced that the university's internal review panel had cleared him of wrongdoing.[29]
In 2020, Wilder raised concerns that the state archives at theLibrary of Virginia had failed to provide access to the records of his gubernatorial administration.[30]
In 2021, following the gubernatorial election of RepublicanGlenn Youngkin, Wilder joined Governor Youngkin's transition team, alongside former Republican governorsJim Gilmore,Bob McDonnell, andGeorge Allen.[31]
In March 2025, Wilder was alleged to have contributed to the firing of a faculty member at VCU. In the summer, Wilder sued a pair of VCU leaders over a workplace investigation involving him over claims that he created a toxic workplace environment, claiming that it was retaliatory for his past criticisms of the school leadership. A heavily redacted report, prepared by an outside law firm and received by The Richmonder, said that the complaints that led to the investigation had only been made by one person, and that no one else had described the workplace as toxic or threatening.[32]
On January 17, 2026, his 95th birthday, Wilder attend the inauguration of Virginia's first female governorAbigail Spanberger, first Muslim lieutenant governor,Ghazala Hashmi, and first black attorney general,Jay Jones.[33]
The L. Douglas Wilder Collection resides at the L. Douglas Wilder Library and Learning Resource Center at Wilder's alma mater,Virginia Union University.[36] The collection contains press office photographs from Wilder's time as governor, over 600 audio cassette tapes of Wilder's WRVA radio talk show as well as other speeches, and over 350 video cassettes of political events, campaign materials, and news appearances. A gallery located in the library also displays many of Wilder's political recognitions and awards.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Lieutenant Governor of Virginia 1986–1990 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Governor of Virginia 1990–1994 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Mayor of Richmond 2005–2009 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Democratic nominee forGovernor of Virginia 1989 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. order of precedence (ceremonial) | ||
| Preceded byas Former U.S. Senator | Order of precedence of the United States Within Virginia | Succeeded byas Former Governor |
| Preceded byas Former Governor | Order of precedence of the United States Outside Virginia | |
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| International | |
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| National | |
| Other | |
