Lawrence Douglas Wilder (born January 17, 1931) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 66th governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994.

After leaving office in 2009, he worked as an adjunct professor and was involved in planning the unrealized United States National Slavery Museum.

[3] The seventh of eight brothers and sisters, Wilder was named for the African-American writers Paul Laurence Dunbar and Frederick Douglass.

While the family was never completely destitute, Wilder recalled his early years during the Great Depression as a childhood of "gentle poverty".

At the Battle of Pork Chop Hill, he and two other men found themselves cut off from their unit, but they bluffed nineteen North Korean soldiers into surrendering, for which Wilder was awarded the Bronze Star Medal.

[9] Douglas Wilder had joined the Democratic Party and began his career in public office by winning a 1969 special election for the Virginia State Senate from a Richmond-area district.

He did so after the initial favorite for the Democratic nomination, State Delegate Owen Pickett of Virginia Beach, paid homage to the Byrd Organization in announcing his bid.

[10] Pickett not only realized that Wilder was serious, but that he would siphon off enough black votes in a three-way race to hand the seat to the Republican nominee, Congressman Paul Trible.

Some observers believed the close election was caused by the Bradley effect, and suggested that white voters were reluctant to tell pollsters that they did not intend to vote for Wilder.

In recognition of his landmark achievement as the first elected African-American governor, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People awarded Wilder the Spingarn Medal for 1990.

He also worked to fund Virginia's transportation initiatives, effectively lobbying Congress to reallocate highway money to the states with the greatest needs.

[12] Much residential and office development had taken place in Northern Virginia without its receiving sufficient federal money for infrastructure improvements to keep up.

Wilder made a failed attempt to enter into an agreement with the Washington Redskins to build a stadium at Potomac Yard in Alexandria.

Wilder and Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke had made an agreement for the move which entailed a $130 million subsidy by the state of the Virginia.

In January 1994 Wilder commuted the sentence of Earl Washington Jr., an intellectually disabled man, to life in prison based on testing of DNA evidence that raised questions about his guilt.

The move to change this policy succeeded in November 2003 when voters approved a mayor-at-large referendum, with roughly 80 percent voting in favor of the measure.

Douglas Wilder is the founder of the United States National Slavery Museum, a non-profit organization based in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Early in 2011 Douglas Wilder was refusing to respond to or answer any questions from either news reporters or patrons who had donated artifacts.

[24] This led to Accordino stepping down from his position and Susan Gooden being named as the interim dean of the college and then Wilder dropping the suit 4 months after filing.

[28] In 2020, Wilder raised concerns that the state archives at the Library of Virginia had failed to provide access to the records of his gubernatorial administration.