A. Linwood Holton (1923– ) Contributed by James H. Hershman Jr. Early Years

Abner Linwood Holton Jr. was born on September 21, 1923, in the small town of Big Stone Gap, in the far southwestern corner of Virginia. Holton's father was the executive of a small coal-hauling railroad. After graduating from Washington and Lee University in Lexington in 1944, Holton entered an officer candidate program of the U.S. Navy and served in the submarine service in the final months of World War II (1939–1945). After the war, he attended Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, earning his degree in 1949.

With an eye toward politics, Holton opened a law practice in Roanoke, an industrial city west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, then the state's third largest urban center. He soon was an attorney in good standing and an emerging leader on the city's Republican Committee. On January 10, 1953, he married Virginia "Jinks" Rogers, the daughter of a leading Democratic figure in Roanoke. The couple had four children: Anne, Tayloe, Woody, and Dwight.

Governor of Virginia

On taking office, Holton made clear that a page had turned in race relations—in his inaugural address, he declared unequivocally that the period of Massive Resistance was over in Virginia: "The era of defiance is behind us," he said. "Let our goal in Virginia be an aristocracy of ability, regardless of race, color or creed." He backed his words with the appointment of African Americans to significant positions in his administration. Holton named Bill Robertson, a black educator and elementary school principal from Roanoke, as a special assistant to the governor to serve as a liaison to the African American community and promote a program to enhance equal employment opportunities. Ernie Fears, the athletic director and basketball coach at Norfolk State College, became the state director of Selective Service, which until that point was an all-white organization that drafted blacks two-thirds more often than whites. Holton's role in helping to equalize the racial makeup of the draft was important in the era of the Vietnam War (1961–1975). His administration was also successful in passing fair housing legislation.

In 1970, Holton demonstrated even bolder and more public leadership during the highly charged controversy over the use of busing to achieve racial desegregation in the Richmond Public Schools. He and his wife chose to enroll their four children in the majority black inner-city schools to which they were assigned under a federal court–mandated plan. A news photograph of the governor escorting his daughter Tayloe into the nearly all-black John F. Kennedy High School on August 31, 1970, circulated throughout the state and nation, appearing on the front page of the New York Times on September 1. Former Virginia governor Colgate Darden, who served from 1942 to 1946, later wrote Holton that the photograph "represent[ed] the most significant happening in this Commonwealth in my lifetime."

Measured by any standard, Linwood Holton must be included in the front ranks of governors of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the twentieth century.

RETRIEVED FROM: https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Holton_A_Linwood_1923- #start_entry