Wilder Realizes a Presidential Dream

Cain, Andrew, The Washington Times (Washington, DC)

****AFTER YEARS OF POLITICS, L. DOUGLAS WILDER HEADS BACK TO HIS ALMA MATER, WHERE HE'LL BE IN CHARGE.****

RICHMOND - L. Douglas Wilder, the former Virginia governor who wanted to be president, is about to get his wish six years later than he hoped.

On Aug. 1, the nation's first elected black governor becomes president of his alma mater, Virginia Union University, a private, historically black school of 1,700 students in north Richmond.

Mr. Wilder, 67, a grandson of slaves who was named for poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar and abolitionist Frederick Douglass, will head a school abolitionists founded in 1865 in an old slave jail.

Cringing politicians may hope the job forces Mr. Wilder to give up his weekly radio show in which he revels as the bully in the bully pulpit.

But Mr. Wilder is unlikely to temper the candor that singes his fellow Democrats, such as U.S. Sen. Charles S. Robb and the party's last two nominees for …

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Publication information: Article title: Wilder Realizes a Presidential Dream. Contributors: Cain, Andrew - Author. Newspaper title: The Washington Times (Washington, DC). Publication date: June 28, 1998. Page number: 1. © 2009 The Washington Times LLC. COPYRIGHT 1998 Gale Group.

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