Don Yarborough

Donald Howard Yarborough (December 15, 1925 – September 23, 2009) was an American Democratic politician who was among the first in the U.S. South to endorse the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Yarborough was an attorney in Houston, Texas. He ran for governor of Texas in 1962, 1964 and 1968.

Background

Yarborough was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. His father was the president of a bank in New Orleans that went bust during the Great Depression, so Don was sent to Mississippi temporarily.

Shortly after earning his law degree, Yarborough re-entered the Marine Corps to serve during the Korean War as a member of the Judge Advocate General's Corps. He then returned to Texas to establish his own law firm and take part in civic affairs. In 1956, as president of the Houston Junior Chamber International, Yarborough won the national debating championship for the organization. In 1960, Yarborough married his first wife, Katherine Edwards.

Career

In his first run for political office, Yarborough ran in 1960 for Texas lieutenant governor. In 1962, he ran for the first time for governor, and in a field of five Democratic candidates, he reached a run-off with John Connally and came within 28,000 votes of winning the nomination, a nationally noted near-upset in a state long dominated by the conservative faction of the Democratic Party. He ran for governor again in 1964 and 1968. In political life, he supported civil rights, economic justice, environmental protection, and women's equality, and challenged the business establishment within Texas politics.

In 1963, Yarborough was named by Life magazine as one of the 100 young Americans who were "distinguished by their dedication to something larger than private success, because they dared to act against old problems, the boldness to try out new ideas, and a hard-bitten, undaunted hopefulness about man."

After leaving politics, Yarborough worked as a lobbyist for the Paraplegia Cure Research in Washington, D.C., where he lived on Capitol Hill and in McLean, Virginia. He also played a role in the Council for a Livable World and was a founding member of biotech research companies.

Personal life Yarborough was married three times: to Katherine Edwards Yarborough in 1960, Gail Lind in 1978, and to Houston realtor Charity O'Connell Yarborough in 1984.

Yarborough died of Parkinson's disease on September 23, 2009.