Former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, America’s first elected Black governor, has encouraged an audience of civil and voting rights activists, community organizers and politicians to never stop fighting for the good of other people.
“I am not a sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd. I am a lion and I refuse to [talk, to walk, to sleep] with the sheep. The slaughterhouse of failure is not my destiny. I will persist until I succeed,” Wilder drew from an inspirational quote he’d learned years ago as he closed his keynote speech to a standing ovation, cheers and applause by hundreds of people in the banquet hall of the Cedar Street Baptist Church of God in Richmond.
The occasion was the 70th Anniversary of the Richmond Crusade for Voters, an organization established in 1956, by three Black men for the purpose of pushing voter registration amidst racist resistance to Black political progress. The audience was wowed as Wilder, a 95-year-old grandson of slaves, spoke candidly from his heart, imparting wisdom to them with no notes and no glasses…