Lawrence Wilder

Lawrence Wilder     ( politician,  lawyer)
Born	Lawrence Douglas Wilder January 17, 1931  Richmond,  Virginia,  U.S.
Nationality	US
Ethnicity	Afro-American
Alma mater	•  Virginia Union University •  Howard University
Spouse	Eunice Montgomery
Party	Democratic
Attended the 1991 Bilderberg as the first Afro-American governor and Governor of Virginia. Mooted Vice President in 1992.  Mayor of Richmond In office January 2, 2005 - January 1, 2009  Governor of Virginia In office January 13, 1990 - January 15, 1994  Lieutenant Governor of Virginia In office January 18, 1986 - January 12, 1990

Lawrence Douglas Wilder is an American lawyer and politician who was governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994. After briefly running for president himself, he was mooted as Vice President for Bill Clinton in 1992.

Background

Wilder was born on January 17, 1931 in the segregated Church Hill neighborhood of Richmond. Of Afro-American heritage, he was named after the writers Paul Laurence Dunbar and Frederick Douglass. Wilder's father sold insurance, and his mother worked as a maid. While the family was never completely destitute, Wilder remembered his early years during the Great Depression as a childhood of "gentle poverty".

Education

Wilder financed his studies while attending Virginia Union University, a historically black university, by working in hotels and polishing shoes. He graduated with a degree in chemistry in 1951.

When men were drafted into the US Army during the Korean War, he volunteered for combat duty. At the Battle of Pork Chop Hill, he and two other men were cut off from their unit, but they bluffed nineteen Chinese soldiers to surrender. For this he received the Bronze Star Medal. He was a sergeant when he was discharged in 1953. After the war, Wilder worked at the State Forensic Medical Institute and did a master's degree in chemistry. In 1956, he changed his career plans and entered Howard University Law School.

Career

After graduating in 1959, he founded a law firm in Richmond, the capital of Virginia.

As a Democratic candidate, Wilder was elected governor of Virginia on November 8, 1989, in a surprise win. Wilder took office on January 13, 1990. He resigned from office in 1994, as Virginia does not allow re-election of the governor. Wilder was the second African-American governor of a state in the United States, and the first elected one.

His feud with his predecessor and party friend Chuck Robb, one of the two senators for Virginia, and his support of Republican politician Mark Earley alienated him from the Democratic Party. In 1992, Wilder applied for the Democratic candidacy for the US presidency, but withdrew even before the end of the primaries. In 1994, he ran unsuccessfully as an independent for a Senate seat.

Wilder was mayor of Richmond from 2005 to 2009.

Post-political career

Wilder continued as a professor in the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. He writes occasional editorials for Virginia newspapers.

Douglas Wilder is the founder of the United 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. 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 of Fredericksburg.

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. The organization filed for Chapter 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.

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. In July 2019, the university's investigator concluded that Wilder did kiss the student without her consent. In response, Wilder provided a detailed rebuttal, in which he denied "non-consensual sexual contact” between Black and him. In addition, he denied retaliating against her by saying her position had been eliminated. 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. The university planned to consider the investigator's findings and Wilder's rebuttal before deciding what action to take, if any. On October 24, 2019, Wilder announced that the university's internal review panel had cleared him of wrongdoing.

 

Event Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/1991	6 June 1991	9 June 1991	Germany Baden-Baden Steigenberger Hotel Badischer Hof	The 39th Bilderberg, 114 guests

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References

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