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L.
Douglas Wilder
by Justin
Lawrence Douglas Wilder was born on January 17, 1931 in a segregated neighborhood called Church Hill. He was the seventh of eight children born to Robert Wilder and Beulah Wilder. Douglas Wilder’s grandparents were slaves, but his accomplishments would be far over their dreams. Wilder attended the segregated schools, George Mason Elementary and Armstrong High School. After graduation from high school, he went to Virginia Union University and got his BS degree in chemistry. Wilder fought in the Korean War and earned a bronze star for capturing 19 Korean soldiers. After the war, he also earned a JD in law from Howard University. Wilder married and divorced, but from that marriage, there were three children. Wilder first noticed that blacks always sat in the rear of buses and street cars. He was also upset because he was not allowed to go to White public colleges, because they were segregated. Wilder applied for a chemist-technician job, but he was told that the job was not available to him, but he could be a cook for a school for troubled boys. As a result of these actions, Douglas felt humiliated. Around the time of these happenings, there was a Supreme Court decision, Brown verses Board of Education, which made segregation illegal. That decision restored his faith in the system, so as a result, he got a law degree. He started a law firm and was very successful at law. In 1969, Douglas Wilder ran for a state senate seat. He won the three-way election with less than 50%, “becoming the first African-American candidate ever elected to statewide office.” After the sixteen years in the senate, Douglas Wilder ran for governor of Virginia and won the election by 4%. That election made Mr. Wilder the first African-American governor in the United States of America and the sixty-sixth governor of Virginia. When Wilder became governor, Virginia had a 2.2 billion dollar deficit, but during his term, he balanced the budget. Now Douglas is seventy-seven years old and also the mayor of Richmond, Virginia. Douglas opened doors for African-Americans who want to run for public offices. Wilder help set the ground work for Barack Obama’s candidacy. http://biography.jrank.org/pages/2438/wilder-L-Douglas.html http://www.richmondsmayor.com/about.aspx
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