Lawrence Douglas Wilder
Iconic Graduates
Former Virginia Governor
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Field of Study
Juris Doctorate
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Year Graduated
1959
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Affiliation
Trustee Emeritus
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Hometown
Richmond, Virginia
Quote
“You don’t ever earn a right to stop doing anything if you feel there is an obligation to move in terms of public service.”Biography
Douglas Wilder is the first African-American in the United States to be elected as governor of a state, serving Virginia from 1990-1994. Also, he was the first Black senator in Virginia and first African American to win election to statewide office.As a student at Howard University School of Law, he met with other influential politicians such as the future mayor of Richmond, Henry L. Marsh III, and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Two years after earning his J.D. in 1959, he started his legal practice Wilder, Gregory and Associates. Wilder notably went the extra mile to personally involve himself as a lawyer into his civil rights cases by refusing to sit in segregated courtrooms. Wilder was a strong force in pushing for a holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr., and lobbied for the budget expansion of Virginia’s public works, universities, and hospitals. The grandson of slaves, Wilder found it critical to organize plans for the National Slavery Museum in Virginia. He returned to Howard University to serve as a trustee from 1993 to 2014.