MIKE GRACIA

Douglas Wilder, the first African American to be elected governor
of an American state, took office as Governor of Virginia on this
day in 1990. Wilder broke a number of color barriers in Virginia
politics and remains an enduring and controversial figure in the
state’s political scene.

Born in 1931 in Church Hill, a poor and segregated neighborhood
of Richmond, Wilder is the grandson of slaves and is named for Frederick Douglass. He grew up in the Jim Crow era, graduating
from Richmond’s Virginia Union University in 1951. Wilder fought
in the Korean War, earning the Bronze Star, before studying law
at Howard University and returning to Richmond to practice.

On January 10, 1967, during his State of the Union speech,
President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Congress for more
money to support the Vietnam War.

Lyndon’s War, a war he actually inherited from President
John F. Kennedy, had achieved nothing by 1967. The North
Vietnamese use of guerrilla warfare tactics resulted in
approximately 14,000 American troops killed in action by
early 1967.

Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973)

SANDY KOZEL

Elvis Presley at 2 years old with his
parents in the year 1937.