"This study focuses on black electoral politics, political leadership, and the political dynamics of anti-black racism through an examination of L. Douglas Wilder's election to the governorship of Virginia in 1989.". "With Wilder's election, he became the first African American elected to state governorship in U.S. history. In many ways the Wilder candidacy is a microcosm of the entire American political and social reality. The fact that a southern state party organization that had historically concerned itself with keeping blacks out of political life would nominate a grandson of slaves to represent its party in the 1989 governor's election speaks volumes."--BOOK JACKET.