Steve Helber/Associated PressL. Douglas Wilder was Virginia’s governor from 1990 to 1994, the first black man in United States history elected to this office. He is shown here in 2006 when he was the mayor of Richmond.
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On Jan. 13, 1990, L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia became the first elected black governor in the United States as he took the oath of office in Richmond.
The New York Times said that Mr. Wilder’s swearing-in ceremony “changed the political face of the United States” and noted that Mr. Wilder, whose grandparents had been slaves, took power in Virginia, “the centerpiece of the Confederacy.” The Times noted that he also became “the nation’s highest ranking black elected official, a political figure to be reckoned with nationally, a symbol not just of a changing state but of a changing South and a changing nation.”
Mr. Wilder, a Democrat, had previously served as lieutenant governor after becoming the first black man to win a statewide election in Virginia in 1985. He faced J. Marshall Coleman, a Republican, in the 1989 gubernatorial race, narrowly defeating Mr. Coleman by less than a half-percent, a result that stood after a recount.
Though Mr. Wilder’s historic victory was euphoric for many, there remained concerns over the effect of his race among voters. Reporting immediately after the election, The Times noted that Democrats running for other offices in that same election got far more votes than Mr. Wilder, suggesting that many white Democrats had voted against Mr. Wilder. Polls had predicted that Mr. Wilder would win comfortably, and many polling experts believed that those surveyed had lied to pollsters about being willing to vote for a black man.
Exit polls conducted by The Times and CBS revealed that nearly 1 in 10 Coleman supporters said that “Mr. Wilder’s race had been a major reason for their vote.” Mr. Wilder also gained votes because of his race: 4 in 10 of black voters, who voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Wilder, said that race had been a major or minor factor.
Mr. Wilder served as governor from 1990 to 1994. His tenure was marked by widespread budget cuts and strong anticrime initiatives. He attempted to run for president, entering the Democratic primaries in 1991 but dropping out early in the race. He later served as mayor of Richmond from 2005 to 2009.
While Mr. Wilder was the first black man to be elected governor, he was not the first black man to serve as governor. That honor belongs to P. B. S. Pinchback, the lieutenant governor of Louisiana who served 35 days as governor from December 1872 to January 1873 after Gov. Henry Clay Warmoth stepped aside because of impeachment charges.
Connect to Today:
Mr. Wilder is currently a contributor to the political Web site Politico. In a December 2011 op-ed, he analyzed the tenure of Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president: “Obama was elected in a flourish of promise that many in the African-American community believed would help not only to symbolize African-American progress since the Civil War and Civil Rights Acts but that his presidency would result in doors opening in the halls of power as had never been seen before by black America,” he wrote. “Has that happened? I am forced to say, ‘No.’”
In a Jan. 1, 2012, New York Times opinion piece, Thomas B. Edsall, a Columbia University professor, argues that a “distortion of economic and racial reality for members of Congress living and working in Washington contributes to their tendency to view the consequences of budget cuts and austerity measures as affecting primarily individuals and families with whom they believe they have little in common.”
What are your thoughts on the relationship between race and politics in 2012? In what ways, if any, do you think the political landscape has changed over the last two decades? Do you think the current government is doing enough to address the economic and social disparities among those who have been historically marginalized?
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