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Article: L. Douglas Wilder: at home in the governor's mansion. (Cover Story)
- Article from:
- Ebony
- Article date:
- February 1, 1991
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1991 Johnson Publishing Co. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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IT is a hot, sticky evening in Richmond, but L. Douglas Wilder, the grandson of slaves, is the epitome of cool as he hosts his first dinner party in the Virginia Executive Mansion, where slaveowners, presidents, aristocrats and diehard racists were once catered to by slaves.
For 177 years, this mansion has been the scene of glittering social events in honor of men and women like the Marquis de LaFayette, Winston Churchill and England's Queen Mother. Here, on the eve of the Civil War, Col. Robert E. Lee came to call, and here, during the war, the body of Stonewall Jackson lay in wake.
The mansion, assumed to have been built partly with slave labor, was ...