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Concept
John Shelton Wilder
Summary
John Shelton Wilder (June 3, 1921 – January 1, 2010) was an American politician who was the 48th Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee for 36 years from January 1971 to January 2007, possibly the longest time anyone has served as Lieutenant Governor or a similar position in the history of the United States. He was a Tennessee state senator from 1959 to 1961 and again from 1967 to 2009. Tennesseans do not elect their lieutenant governor; rather, the Speaker of the Senate, who is first in the line of succession to the governor, is granted the title by statute.
Wilder was from Fayette County, near Memphis. He was from an affluent family with extensive agricultural and agribusiness interests. He attended Fayette County Public Schools and received an undergraduate degree from the University of Tennessee College of Agriculture and a law degree from Memphis State University, now the University of Memphis.
He and his family were known for fairer dealings with African American farm employees and tenants than was typical of the area during the segregation era. This fact served him very well upon entering into elective politics at about the time that Tennessee blacks in rural areas were first being allowed their constitutional rights to participate in political decisions which had been guaranteed under the Tennessee and federal constitutions but previously unenforced. Wilder was also a prominent attorney in Somerville, the county seat of Fayette County.
Wilder married his wife Marcelle in 1941 and served in the U.S. Army during World War II.
He was a member of the former Fayette County Quarterly Court (now the County Commission) for 18 years. A Democrat, he was first elected to the Tennessee Senate in 1958, serving until January 1961.
Wilder did not run for reelection in 1960, but returned to the state Senate in 1967. After this time, a state constitutional amendment extended the length of terms in the state Senate to four years. Wilder was elected to a four-year term in 1968 and was reelected every four years thereafter until 2008.
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