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THE INDEPENDENT PRESS OF VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY 2019, 2020, 2021 Newspaper Pacemaker Winner
The
Commonwealth Times BLACK HISTORY MONTH SPECIAL ISSUE
VOL. 70, NO. 3
FEBRUARY 12, 2025
Former Governor L. Douglas Wilder sat down with The Commonwealth Times to discuss his life, his work and the future. Photo by Bilan Osman.
"Leadership is the key" A conversation with L. Douglas Wilder On his mother, his biggest inspiration
JACK GLAGOLA NEWS EDITOR
I liked reading, and my mother was very adept at reading and she liked crossword puzzles. She could solve the New York Times crossword puzzle in about a half hour. And she’d be upset if she didn’t get every word. So I got into that, and that’s how it broadened my vocabulary. And I had teachers who would not allow you to not “round” your D’s and speak with your T’s as you should, and so I guess what I was fortunate with was to have people who cared.
survived, did we have the best campaigner against him before? And I’m not speaking about Harris — Hillary. What was her message, if you could tell me? “I hung out with Jay-Z last night.” Do you remember when she came up with the commercial? That was supposed to be attracting Black voters. “I hung out with Jay-Z last night.” Who gives a damn! What does that mean to me?
campaigning, you go to a barbershop, you have to go to everyone. And every hand, you got to shake it. Every grocery store, you got to do it. You can’t leave anybody out.”
on the knife that cut the pie.
Well, those things come and go. I’ve always considered it serving the people and doing what I thought could be done within the limitations of human accomplishment, and I found that in this capacity I’m able to share. But see, that’s why a lot of what I’m doing now is trying to advance the causes of historical Black colleges and universities. And I think it’s catching on, it’s doing better. But it’s not where it ought to be.
Former Governor L. Douglas Wilder is a man of many On Patrick Henry firsts — first Black Virginia In going to the church and hearing the senator, lieutenant governor, extolling of Patrick Henry and “Give me liberty or give me death,” I would say governor, first directly things to my father about it and it would On money being a driving elected mayor of Richmond rankle my father because his parents were slaves. He said, “Well, what did Patrick force in politics and now a distinguished You can’t escape it! They try to come up Henry do? Did he go and fight anywhere? professor at the VCU school with some way around it, and then they Did he join any army? No, he went on up that bears his name. He have to say: “You’re right!” But still don’t into Ashland and still worked his slaves.” On education So when you hear a slave owner speak has spent several decades I was lucky to be surrounded with people stop. Don’t stop trying to find it, because of liberty and death, it’s a sham to begin who appreciated education. I’ve always it makes you learn more. Now, that being with. But I always believed, and I believe — he turned 94 years old prided my generation with carrying on the case, if you recognize it and get to that now, that the fact that those words were this year — serving the and not being inventive to the extent that point, then I understood early on what there gave emphasis to what could be. Commonwealth and his we did anything new. But the people in it meant. I decided that I was not just whose care we were entrusted knew we interested in a fair slice of the civic pie or community. had a higher responsibility. That’s why the political pie. I wanted my hand to be On his time serving Virginia What follows are selected excerpts from The Commonwealth Times’ interview with the former governor. This transcript has been edited for clarity. The full transcript can be found on commonwealthtimes.org
I’ve always believed that education is still key to solutions to whatever problems you may have. It’s education.
On leadership Leadership. I stay with that. Leadership is the key, and leadership is a tautology. It defines itself. What does leadership mean? To lead. And what do you mean to lead? To be in front. What do you mean by that? Be ahead. Today, we suffer from a lack of it. People lamenting, “Oh, Trump is elected again!” He was elected before! We
On campaigning for lieutenant governor in Southwest Virginia The finest treatment that I had received in that campaign is from those very people. Because we were being prejudiced. A friend of mine who was from Christiansburg — a senator whose name was Madison Marye — he said, “Doug, I like your idea, and I think it’s great. But when you go out there
Continued on next page.
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