Opportunity Time

For someone from Big Stone Gap, about as far west as you can go and still be in Virginia, there were not many opportunities for you in the mid and late 1900s especially when you were a Republican. To get ahead one had to recognize when opportunities came available and work hard to take advantage of them. That is probably the reason former Governor Linwood Holton who passed away last week at age 98 entitled his memoirs that were published in 2008 Opportunity Time (University of Virginia Press). The title reflects his approach to life and to raising his four children along with Jinx, his wife of 68 years.

By putting together a coalition of moderate Republicans, Blacks, and union members, Holton was able to get himself elected in 1969 as the first Republican governor of Virginia in the 20th century. His election put the first dent in the Byrd machine that had dominated Virginia politics for the entire century.

For those who are having trouble understanding political designations during this period of history, the Byrd machine that controlled Virginia politics from the administration of Governor and later Senator Harry R. Byrd in the late 1920s until the mid-1970s called themselves Democrats tracing their beginnings to opposition to Republican-led Reconstruction. They were racists who passed Jim Crow laws to keep Black Virginians from voting and participating in much of Virginia society. These persons are more accurately called Dixiecrats for they represented the racist policies of the Southern states at the time.

For anyone who was progressive on racial policies and supported better schools and mental health programs the alternative was to be a Republican which at the time was much more progressive than the Democrats especially in the Shenandoah Valley. That is why a progressive like Linwood Holton ran as a Republican and reflected a shift in Virginia politics. He opposed “massive resistance” that Byrd supporters used to close schools rather than desegregate them. In my own experience of becoming a member of the House of Delegates in 1978, I found more in common with Valley Republicans who were progressive than I did with the remaining Byrd Democrats who were ultra conservative and racist.

During Holton’s term as governor the national Republican Party shifted under Richard Nixon and a Lee Atwater strategy to use race as a way for Republicans to win in the South. Byrd Democrats became Independents or Republicans. Moderate Democrats began to emerge. Governor Holton split with the national Republican Party over the Southern Strategy, and in his later years most often endorsed Democrats for office. I considered him a good friend and enjoyed working with him.

Under Governor Holton the Commonwealth adopted an income tax as a way to fund improved schools, modernized government under a cabinet system, and started on its way to improved relationships among the races. His inaugural address included his highest calling for an “opportunity time.” He said, “…let us now endeavor to make today’s Virginia a model in race relations…Let our goal in Virginia be an aristocracy of ability, regardless of race, color, or creed.”