Appalachian Figures Series – The Story of A. Linwood Holton of Wise, Virginia
On the morning of August 31, 1970, Virginia governor A. Linwood Holton walked beside his teenage daughter Tayloe as she entered John F. Kennedy High School in Richmond. The school’s students were overwhelmingly Black. Television cameras and newspaper photographers recorded the moment, and the resulting image appeared on the front page of the New York Times the following day.
The photograph became one of the defining images of Virginia’s long struggle over public school integration. It showed a sitting governor doing something that would have seemed politically impossible only a few years earlier. Holton was not merely asking Virginians to follow federal desegregation orders. He was sending his own children into the public schools affected by them.
The man in that photograph had been born far from Richmond’s government buildings and political circles. Abner Linwood Holton Jr. came from Big Stone Gap in Wise County, a Southwest Virginia community shaped by mountains, railroads, coal traffic, and a Republican tradition that stood apart from the Democratic organization controlling most of the Commonwealth.
Holton carried that Appalachian political inheritance into the governor’s mansion. His victory helped restore competitive politics in Virginia, but his greatest legacy came from his willingness to reject the state’s segregationist past and declare that public office belonged to all Virginians.
Big Stone Gap and Mountain Republicanism
Abner Linwood Holton Jr. was born in Big Stone Gap on September 21, 1923. His father, Abner Linwood Holton Sr., was an executive of a small railroad that hauled coal from the Southwest Virginia fields. His mother was Edith Van Gorder Holton. The family lived in a region where rail lines, mining companies, merchants, attorneys, and local political organizations were closely connected to the daily life of the coalfields.
Big Stone Gap was a small town, but it was not isolated from the political currents moving through Virginia. Southwest Virginia was one of the few parts of the state where Republicans remained competitive during the decades when the Democratic Party dominated almost every level of government.
The roots of that political difference reached back to the Civil War and Reconstruction. In much of Virginia, Republicanism remained associated with federal occupation and the defeat of the Confederacy. In the Appalachian counties of the southwest, however, old Unionist loyalties and opposition to eastern political control helped preserve Republican organizations.
By the middle of the twentieth century, these Southwest Virginia Republicans often differed from the increasingly conservative national image of their party. The “Mountain and Valley” Republicans of Southwest Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley were more willing than many Virginia Democrats to challenge the poll tax, support public education, and accept a larger role for state services.
Holton grew up inside that tradition. His Republicanism was not originally built around resistance to civil rights or hostility toward public institutions. It grew from a mountain political culture that distrusted the Richmond establishment and believed the state government should serve communities beyond the influence of the dominant Democratic organization.
The surviving Holton collections preserve unusually detailed evidence of this early period. His papers include schoolwork, identification cards, family materials, photographs, tax records, political writings, and later correspondence concerning Wise County. The Virginia Museum of History and Culture collection also contains correspondence from his mother about the proposed Big Cherry Reservoir, preserving another connection between the Holton family and the public concerns of Wise County.
War, Harvard, and a Roanoke Law Practice
Holton entered Washington and Lee University in Lexington in 1941. After the United States entered World War II, he enlisted in the United States Navy on July 4, 1942. He completed his undergraduate education in 1944 and entered an officer candidate program before serving in the Navy’s submarine force during the final months of the war.
The surviving personal papers at the Library of Virginia contain military identification, documents connected to his naval service, and photographs of American and Japanese submarines. These records provide a view of Holton before public life, when he was a young Appalachian college graduate serving in a highly demanding branch of the wartime Navy.
After the war, Holton attended Harvard Law School and received his law degree in 1949. He then moved to Roanoke, where he established himself as an attorney and became active in the city’s Republican organization.
Roanoke offered Holton a larger professional and political stage while keeping him connected to western Virginia. It was an industrial city, a railroad center, and an important meeting place between the Appalachian counties and the rest of the Commonwealth.
In 1953, Holton married Virginia Harrison Rogers, who was known as Jinks. Her father was an influential Democrat in Roanoke, creating a household in which political differences did not prevent cooperation or affection. Linwood and Jinks Holton had four children, Tayloe, Anne, Linwood III, who became known as Woody, and Dwight.
Fighting the Byrd Organization
Virginia politics during Holton’s early career remained dominated by the organization associated with United States senator Harry F. Byrd Sr. The Byrd Organization controlled the Democratic Party, courthouse networks, state appointments, and much of the General Assembly. Republicans held only a small number of legislative seats and had little influence over statewide policy.
Holton joined the Republican movement led by state senator Theodore Roosevelt Dalton of Radford. Dalton represented the Mountain and Valley wing of the party and advocated a more competitive political system, stronger public services, and a less reactionary response to the developing civil rights struggle.
The United States Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. Virginia’s ruling Democrats responded with Massive Resistance, a collection of laws and policies intended to prevent integration, even when that meant closing public schools.
Dalton and his allies supported gradual compliance rather than school closure. Holton aligned himself with that position. He ran unsuccessfully for the Virginia House of Delegates from Roanoke in 1955 and again in 1957 as an opponent of Massive Resistance.
Those defeats reveal how difficult Holton’s path appeared. He was attempting to build a Republican Party in a state where Republicans rarely won, while opposing segregationist policies that still enjoyed support among a substantial portion of the white electorate.
Holton nevertheless continued recruiting candidates, strengthening local organizations, and promoting Republican competition. His objective was larger than winning a single office. He wanted to break the political monopoly that had allowed one organization to dominate Virginia government for generations.
The Long Campaign for Governor
Republican leaders selected Holton as their candidate for governor in 1965. His Democratic opponent was lieutenant governor Mills E. Godwin Jr., a former supporter of Massive Resistance who had begun adopting a more moderate public position.
Holton entered the campaign with limited money and little expectation of victory. His immediate goal was to strengthen the Republican Party and establish himself as a credible candidate for the next gubernatorial election.
Godwin won with approximately 47 percent of the vote, while Holton received about 38 percent. The result was a defeat, but it demonstrated that a Republican could attract a substantial statewide following.
Four years later, Virginia’s political environment had changed. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the removal of the poll tax expanded participation in elections. The number of votes cast in the 1969 governor’s race increased by more than 62 percent compared with 1965.
The Democratic Party also endured a bitter primary contest. Holton, meanwhile, had become a familiar candidate and received support from President Richard Nixon. He assembled a coalition that included traditional Republicans from Southwest Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley, suburban voters, white working-class voters, and a meaningful share of Virginia’s newly empowered Black electorate.
On November 4, 1969, Holton defeated Democrat William C. Battle with approximately 52 percent of the vote. He became Virginia’s first Republican governor of the twentieth century and the first Republican elected to the office since the Reconstruction period.
The victory carried a special meaning in Big Stone Gap. A surviving guest register documents a celebration there following his election. The register is more than a campaign souvenir. It represents the return of a native son whose career had begun in the Republican communities of the mountains and had now reached the highest office in Virginia.
“The Era of Defiance Is Behind Us”
Holton took the oath of office on January 17, 1970. The surviving WRVA recording preserves the ceremony, his inaugural address, the parade, music, and the reactions of contemporary journalists.
Standing before a state that had spent years resisting court-ordered integration, Holton announced a sharp break with the past:
“The era of defiance is behind us. Let our goal in Virginia be an aristocracy of ability, regardless of race, color or creed.”
The words mattered because Virginia governors had previously used the authority of the state to defend segregated schools. Holton was now using the same office to state that resistance was over.
His administration appointed Black Virginians to positions of responsibility that had previously been closed to them. Holton selected Roanoke educator William Robertson as a special assistant and liaison to the Black community. He appointed Norfolk State College coach and athletic director Ernie Fears to lead Virginia’s Selective Service system, an organization that had previously been entirely white despite its power to draft Black men for military service.
The administration also worked to improve equal employment opportunities and supported fair housing legislation. These actions did not remove racial inequality from Virginia, but they signaled that Black Virginians were no longer to be treated as outsiders within their own state government.
Holton later reflected on Massive Resistance in a 1992 article for the Washington and Lee Law Review. His account placed the school-closing movement within the larger history of Virginia politics and explained why he believed resistance had harmed both public education and the Commonwealth’s moral standing. The article remains one of the most important first-person sources for understanding his views.
A Family Walks Into History
Holton’s most visible statement on integration came not through a bill or executive appointment, but through his family.
A federal desegregation plan assigned the Holton children to public schools in Richmond. Because the governor’s mansion was not technically located within the city’s residential system, the family might have attempted to avoid the assignments. Instead, Linwood and Jinks Holton sent their children to the schools designated under the plan.
Tayloe Holton entered John F. Kennedy High School, where nearly all the students were Black. Her father accompanied her to the building on August 31, 1970. Jinks Holton accompanied Anne and Linwood III to their assigned school.
The photograph of the governor and Tayloe did not erase the fear, anger, and violence surrounding school integration. It did, however, show that the burden of desegregation should not fall only upon Black families, working-class families, or children whose parents had no political influence.
Holton’s message was made stronger by the fact that the family remained committed to Richmond’s public schools. Tayloe later became valedictorian of John F. Kennedy High School’s graduating class. The Holton papers preserve both her 1974 valedictory address and the remarks delivered by her father at the commencement ceremony.
The episode became the most remembered moment of Holton’s governorship, but it should not be reduced to a single photograph. The family’s decision reflected years of opposition to Massive Resistance and a belief that public education could not succeed if political leaders exempted themselves from the consequences of their own policies.
Reorganizing Virginia
Race relations formed the most visible part of Holton’s legacy, but his administration also changed the structure and operation of Virginia government.
When Holton entered office, a large number of agencies and departments reported directly to the governor. The arrangement consumed time, divided responsibility, and made coordination difficult.
On February 18, 1970, Holton created the Governor’s Management Study, a privately financed organization composed of business leaders and private citizens. Its purpose was to examine the cost and effectiveness of state services and recommend a more efficient executive structure.
The study’s final report recommended a cabinet system. In 1972, the General Assembly created six cabinet secretary positions, reducing the number of departments reporting directly to the governor and establishing a structure that continues to shape Virginia government.
Holton also pursued environmental reform. Virginia’s economic development had left many rivers and streams burdened by industrial waste and untreated sewage. His administration strengthened the state’s response to water pollution and made environmental protection a visible gubernatorial priority.
In Hampton Roads, Holton helped persuade competing local governments and port interests to accept a unified Virginia Ports Authority. The agreement strengthened the Commonwealth’s ability to coordinate maritime commerce and compete for shipping traffic.
Holton was not a liberal on every issue. He supported the Vietnam War and took a hard position against disruptive campus protest at the University of Virginia. His politics combined support for racial equality, government reform, environmental enforcement, and public institutions with a generally moderate Republican approach to national security and public order.
He also governed with a General Assembly still dominated by Democrats. His accomplishments depended upon negotiation rather than party control. That ability to work across political lines helped him leave office in 1974 with a reported approval rating of 77 percent.
A Moderate Caught Between Two Parties
Holton hoped his election would produce a new Republican majority composed of traditional mountain Republicans, suburban voters, Black Virginians, moderates, and working-class families dissatisfied with the Byrd Organization.
The national and state parties were moving in another direction. President Nixon’s southern strategy sought to attract conservative white Democrats unsettled by civil rights reforms. Within Virginia, Republican activists led by Richard Obenshain argued that the party’s path to power required absorbing former Byrd Democrats rather than building Holton’s moderate coalition.
Holton also disappointed party loyalists who believed he should fill more government positions with Republicans and confront the Democratic legislature more aggressively. By 1972, his opponents had gained control of the state Republican organization.
The division placed Holton in an increasingly uncomfortable position. The Republican Party was becoming more conservative, while many moderate and liberal voters were moving toward Virginia’s Democrats.
In 1973, Holton helped persuade his former opponent Mills Godwin to seek the governorship as a Republican. Godwin won, but his movement into the party also brought former Byrd Organization supporters into the Republican coalition. The political realignment that Holton helped begin therefore developed differently from the inclusive, centrist party he had imagined.
Holton sought the Republican nomination for the United States Senate in 1978 but finished third behind Richard Obenshain and John Warner. It was his last campaign for elected office.
From Richmond to Washington
After leaving the governor’s office in January 1974, Holton entered the federal government. President Nixon appointed him assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs on February 27, and he began work the following day.
The position required Holton to act as a connection between Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Congress during one of the most difficult periods in modern presidential history. The Watergate crisis was moving toward Nixon’s resignation, while the administration faced continuing debates over the Vietnam War, foreign aid, narcotics policy, human rights, and relations with the Soviet Union.
Official State Department records show that Holton served through January 31, 1975. Foreign Relations of the United States documents and other federal records preserve his participation in meetings with President Nixon, Vice President Gerald Ford, Kissinger, congressional leaders, and senior administration officials.
Holton’s national reputation was considerable. In August 1974, Senator George Aiken of Vermont recommended him as a possible vice-presidential selection after Gerald Ford became president. Ford ultimately chose Nelson Rockefeller, but the recommendation demonstrates that Holton was viewed as a credible national figure whose civil rights record and moderate Republicanism extended beyond Virginia.
After leaving the State Department, Holton returned to legal practice. In later years he chaired the Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority and helped negotiate the transfer of Washington National Airport and Dulles International Airport from federal control to the regional authority.
From 1988 until 1994, he served as president of Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology, supporting efforts to attract advanced industries and technological development to the Commonwealth.
The Long Afterlife of a Public Career
Holton remained active in public affairs long after his final election campaign. His willingness to cross party lines became increasingly central to his public identity.
His daughter Anne Holton became a judge and later Virginia’s secretary of education. She married Tim Kaine, a Democrat who served as mayor of Richmond, lieutenant governor, governor, United States senator, and the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2016.
Holton supported candidates from both parties when he believed they shared his priorities. To some Republicans, this represented a departure from party loyalty. To Holton, it reflected the same belief that had guided his administration, that government should be judged by its service to the public rather than by obedience to a political organization.
In 2008, the University of Virginia Press published his memoir, Opportunity Time. The book traced his childhood in Big Stone Gap, military service, legal career, Republican organizing, gubernatorial campaigns, administration, and later public work. It also allowed Holton to place his own career within the transformation of Virginia from a one-party state into a competitive political system.
Holton died at his home in Kilmarnock, Virginia, on October 28, 2021. He was 98 years old.
Why Linwood Holton Matters to Appalachian History
A. Linwood Holton’s story belongs to the history of Virginia, the civil rights movement, and American political realignment. It also belongs to Appalachian history.
His political identity was formed in a Southwest Virginia Republican tradition that challenged the power of the eastern establishment. Mountain Republicanism taught him that the political system did not have to remain under the permanent control of one party or one organization.
Holton carried that lesson from Big Stone Gap to Roanoke and eventually to Richmond. He confronted the Byrd Organization, rejected Massive Resistance, opened state offices to Black Virginians, supported public school integration, modernized the executive branch, and helped establish a competitive two-party system.
His career also complicates simple descriptions of Appalachian politics. Holton was a Republican from a coalfield community who opposed school segregation, supported fair housing, expanded Black participation in government, pursued environmental enforcement, and cooperated with a Democratic legislature.
The famous photograph outside John F. Kennedy High School remains the clearest symbol of his public life. Yet the deeper meaning of the photograph begins in Wise County. The governor walking his daughter into an integrated school was the son of a coal-hauling railroad executive from Big Stone Gap, raised in a mountain political culture that believed entrenched power could be challenged.
Holton did not end racial inequality, partisan division, or political exclusion in Virginia. He did, however, demonstrate that a governor could acknowledge the state’s failures, accept constitutional change, and ask citizens to enter a new period together.
From the mountains of Wise County, A. Linwood Holton rose to become one of the most consequential Virginia governors of the twentieth century. His legacy rests not simply upon being the first Republican elected in a century, but upon what he chose to do once the doors of the governor’s mansion opened to him.
Sources & Further Reading
Library of Virginia. Records of Governor A. Linwood Holton, 1970–1974. Accessions 28050, 28101, 28795, and 29488. Richmond, Virginia. https://old.lva.virginia.gov/public/guides/rn11_govrecords.htm
Library of Virginia. A. Linwood Holton Papers, 1943–1970. Accession 31535. Richmond, Virginia. https://uncommonwealth.lva.virginia.gov/blog/2017/10/13/opportunity-time-the-records-of-virginia-governor-linwood-holton/
Library of Virginia. A. Linwood Holton Papers, 1965–1974. Accession 28327. Richmond, Virginia. https://uncommonwealth.lva.virginia.gov/blog/2017/10/13/opportunity-time-the-records-of-virginia-governor-linwood-holton/
Library of Virginia. A. Linwood Holton Papers, 1968–1970. Accession 31626. Richmond, Virginia. https://uncommonwealth.lva.virginia.gov/blog/2017/10/13/opportunity-time-the-records-of-virginia-governor-linwood-holton/
Library of Virginia. A. Linwood Holton Papers, 1968–1974. Accession 28253. Richmond, Virginia. https://uncommonwealth.lva.virginia.gov/blog/2017/10/13/opportunity-time-the-records-of-virginia-governor-linwood-holton/
Library of Virginia. A. Linwood Holton Papers, 1971–1975. Accession 30221. Richmond, Virginia. https://old.lva.virginia.gov/public/guides/rn11_govrecords.htm
Library of Virginia. Governor Linwood Holton Inauguration. WRVA-552, January 17, 1970. Richmond, Virginia. https://uncommonwealth.lva.virginia.gov/blog/2017/10/13/opportunity-time-the-records-of-virginia-governor-linwood-holton/
Library of Virginia. The Holton Years. Audiovisual documentary, 1974. Richmond, Virginia. https://uncommonwealth.lva.virginia.gov/blog/2017/10/13/opportunity-time-the-records-of-virginia-governor-linwood-holton/
Library of Virginia. “The Records of Virginia Governor Linwood Holton.” Uncommonwealth, October 13, 2017. https://uncommonwealth.lva.virginia.gov/blog/2017/10/13/opportunity-time-the-records-of-virginia-governor-linwood-holton/
Library of Virginia. “Using Virginia Governors’ Records.” Research Notes no. 11. https://old.lva.virginia.gov/public/guides/rn11_govrecords.htm
Virginia Museum of History & Culture. A. Linwood Holton Papers, 1929–1995. Call number Mss1 H7445 a. Richmond, Virginia. https://virginiahistory.org/research/research-resources/guides-researchers/manuscript-collections-environmental-history-resources-guide
Virginia Museum of History & Culture. Anne Hobson Freeman Papers. Call number Mss1 F8774 a FA2. Includes an oral-history interview with A. Linwood Holton recorded September 25, 1992. https://virginiahistory.org/research/research-resources/finding-aids/anne-hobson-freeman
Holton, A. Linwood Jr. Opportunity Time: A Memoir. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008. https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/3908/
Holton, Linwood. “A Former Governor’s Reflections on Massive Resistance in Virginia.” Washington and Lee Law Review 49, no. 1 (1992): 15. https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol49/iss1/5/
Holton, Linwood. Inaugural Address of Governor Linwood Holton to the General Assembly and the People of Virginia. Senate Document no. 3. Richmond: Commonwealth of Virginia, 1970. https://rga.lis.virginia.gov/Published/1970/SD3/PDF
Holton, Linwood. Interview by Kent Germany. Richard Nixon Oral History Project, February 26, 2007. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/forresearchers/find/histories/Linwood_Holton.pdf
Commonwealth of Virginia. “1965 November 2 General Election: Governor.” Virginia Historical Elections Database. https://historical.elections.virginia.gov/contest/79245
Commonwealth of Virginia. “1969 November 4 General Election: Governor.” Virginia Historical Elections Database. https://historical.elections.virginia.gov/contest/78749
Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. White House Communications Agency Sound Recordings Collection. Includes Nixon’s October 28, 1969, Roanoke campaign rally for Linwood Holton. https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/2018-07/WHCA%20Sound%20Recordings%20Collection.pdf
United States Department of State, Office of the Historian. “Abner Linwood Holton.” Department History: People. https://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/holton-abner-linwood
United States Department of State, Office of the Historian. “Memorandum of Conversation.” In Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, vol. 38, pt. 1, document 33. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v38p1/d33
United States Department of State, Office of the Historian. “Meeting with Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee.” In Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, vol. 38, pt. 1, document 49. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v38p1/d49
United States Department of State, Office of the Historian. “Disposal of Opium from the National Stockpile.” In Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, electronic volume 3, document 171. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve03/d171
Bradley v. School Board of the City of Richmond, 317 F. Supp. 555. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 1970. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/317/555/1415526/
Bradley v. School Board of the City of Richmond, 462 F.2d 1058. United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 1972. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/462/1058/280802/
School Board of the City of Richmond v. State Board of Education, 412 U.S. 92. United States Supreme Court, 1973. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/412/92/
Bradley v. School Board of the City of Richmond, 416 U.S. 696. United States Supreme Court, 1974. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USREPORTS-416/pdf/USREPORTS-416-696.pdf
Time. “Elections 1969: The Moderates Have It.” November 14, 1969. https://time.com/archive/6634443/nation-elections-1969-the-moderates-have-it/
Hershman, James H. Jr. “A. Linwood Holton (1923–2021).” Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/holton-a-linwood-1923/
National Governors Association. “Governor Linwood Holton.” https://www.nga.org/governor/linwood-holton/
Hunter, Jack R. “Linwood Holton’s Long Quest for the Governorship of Virginia and Its Impact on the Growth of the Republican Party.” Master’s thesis, University of Richmond, 1972. https://scholarship.richmond.edu/masters-theses/353/
Atkinson, Frank B. The Dynamic Dominion: Realignment and the Rise of Two-Party Competition in Virginia, 1945–1980. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Dynamic_Dominion.html?id=s8Lt0QEACAAJ
Sweeney, James R. “Southern Strategies.” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 106, no. 2 (1998): 165–200. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/history_fac_pubs/10/
Pratt, Robert A. The Color of Their Skin: Education and Race in Richmond, Virginia, 1954–89. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1992. https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/2708/
Heinemann, Ronald L., John G. Kolp, Anthony S. Parent Jr., and William G. Shade. Old Dominion, New Commonwealth: A History of Virginia, 1607–2007. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007. https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/3313/
Smith, J. Douglas. Managing White Supremacy: Race, Politics, and Citizenship in Jim Crow Virginia. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. https://uncpress.org/9780807854242/managing-white-supremacy/
Virginia Museum of History & Culture. “School Busing.” https://virginiahistory.org/learn/civil-rights-movement-virginia/school-busing
Miller Center. “In Memoriam: A. Linwood Holton Jr.” University of Virginia, October 2021. https://millercenter.org/memoriam-linwood-holton-jr
University of Virginia Press. “Honoring Linwood Holton, Virginia’s First GOP Governor in the Twentieth Century and Giant of Civil Rights.” October 29, 2021. https://www.upress.virginia.edu/news/honoring-linwood-holton-virginias-first-gop-governor-in-the-twentieth-century-and-giant-of-civil-rights/
Author Note: Linwood Holton’s life shows how a political tradition rooted in Southwest Virginia helped reshape the entire Commonwealth. His choices during school integration also remind us that public leadership is measured most clearly when principle carries a personal cost.