Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 18, 1991 TAG: 9104180377
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROB EURE POLITICAL WRITER
DATELINE: WAKEFIELD LENGTH: Medium
And he responded with rare personal remarks about the racial barriers he has faced in his political life and the triumphs he has felt in overcoming them.
Wilder, one of two blacks to integrate the event in 1976, called his acceptance then "the new red-letter day in Virginia."
"No doubt, many of you can recall the expectations of rancor and predictions of discourtesy," when Wilder and former Del. William Robinson Sr. of Norfolk announced they would attend the Shad Planking amid some of Virginia's fiercest segregationists, Wilder recalled.
"I am not, nor was I then, naive enough not to notice the handful of furtive glances in . . . and away from . . . my direction."
But he said he experienced no outward racism "nor any semblance of any noteworthy behavior, except, that is, Virginia hospitality at its finest."
"Something was born in me at this event, on that day, in that year, of immeasurable significance," Wilder said. He said he calls it his own red-letter day, a day that provides a measure of how far Virginia has come since 1619 - called the Red Letter Year because women, and the first slaves, arrived at Jamestown.
Wilder said the visit to Southside that day taught him about Virginians' "resilience, their sense of honor and duty, their sense of values."
"My belief in those values was sustained and strengthened one-thousandfold. More than ever, I was convinced that the high possibility of individual achievement could be attained by any person, not `even' in Virginia as some might say, but especially in Virginia."
Wilder said on a visit to the gathering during his 1989 gubernatorial campaign, "You can't be governor without going to the Shad Planking." Wednesday, he said, "You accorded and afforded me every courtesy extended to any other person and candidate. For that, I am grateful and proud, and I sincerely thank you."
In fact, Wilder's election may show the shrinking clout of Southside Virginia's politics. It was here that politicians formed the first opposition to the Supreme Court's edict to integrate public schools in the 1950s. A group of politicians gathered at the Petersburg Firehouse to start Virginia's Massive Resistance - a plan to shut down public schools rather than allow black children in formerly white schoolhouses.
Wakefield's own Democratic senator, Elmon Gray, was one of the few Democratic legislators not to endorse Wilder for governor in 1989, and the region gave Wilder's Republican opponent, Marshall Coleman, his strongest margin.
But Southside's vote was more than countered with support for Wilder in the Northern Virginia suburbs.
Gray, who was scheduled to introduce Wilder at the Shad Planking, pulled out Tuesday, according to organizers, to attend the funeral of Sen. John Buchanan, D-Wise.
Gray and Wilder are near a showdown over redistricting. Gray's district would be redrawn to include a black majority if Wilder follows through with his announced plans to draw five black majority districts in the Senate.
Wednesday, Wilder received a polite reception from the estimated 3,000 people attending this year's event - the 43rd Shad Planking sponsored by the local Ruritan club.
Last year, Wilder's first as governor, was his turn to speak, according to the tradition of the gathering at which politics is mixed with the smoked bony shad, bourbon and beer. But Wilder's sometimes-rival Sen. Charles Robb, D-Va., was invited instead.
Embarrassed organizers said it was an oversight. Wilder found business to keep him in Richmond.
This year, it was Robb who begged off the gathering.
"I think it's fitting for the governor to speak here," said Tom Raines, the 4th Congressional District Republican chairman who helped organize the seating arrangements on a flatbed truck at the Shad Planking, held in a grove of scrub pines.
"I just regret that there's a smaller crowd than usual."
by CNB