Lawrence Douglas Wilder (born 1931) was the first African American elected governor in the United States. He rose from waiting tables in the segregated country clubs of the Jim Crow South to become a powerful Virginia state legislator who broke the color line by winning statewide elections as lieutenant governor in 1985 and then as governor four years later.

Lawrence Douglas Wilder was born January 17, 1931, in Richmond, Virginia, the youngest of Robert and Beulah Wilder's ten children. Robert Wilder sold insurance for an African American-owned insurance company, making the Wilders middle-class for their day. Wilder remembered his childhood as "gentle poverty."

Starting at age 13, Wilder held a variety of jobs to earn money for college. For example, he worked as a shoeshine boy, elevator operator, and paper boy. In 1947 at age 16, Wilder entered Virginia Union University, where he studied chemistry. He also began waiting tables at the city's segregated hotels...