Macon Melville Long Sr.

Macon Melville Long (April 2, 1885 – April 24, 1988) was an American farmer, banker, lawyer and politician who served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly representing Wise County and nearby areas of southwest Virginia. He served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1940 to 1943, then as a member of the Virginia Senate from 1944 to 1971.

Early life Macon Melville Long was born on April 2, 1885, near Woodville in Rappahannock County, Virginia, to the former Alice Varner and her husband, J. Macon Long, both Primitive Baptists and farmers. He had three sisters and a younger brother, Edwin, who became a physician and moved to Utah. Long graduated from the University of Richmond School of Law with a Bachelor of Laws in 1910.

Career Long moved to the Clinch River Valley and practiced law for 62 years in St. Paul.

A member of the Democratic Party, Long won his first election, to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1939, and served from 1940 to 1943 when he won election to the state senate (also a part-time position) representing Wise and nearby Dickenson County. Two years later he won election to the Virginia Senate, and won re-election repeatedly, from 1944 to 1971, However, his district changed as various one-man/one-vote decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court forced the Byrd Organization to increase representation of the populations centers in northern and southeastern Virginia, with Norton County added for the 1959 election and Russell County for the 1965 election. Long's only serious challenge came as the Byrd Organization disintegrated at the end of the Massive Resistance crisis in 1967, when he defeated a Republican challenger by approximately 500 votes of 30,000 cast. His son Macon M. Long Jr. like his father became a lawyer, and the legislature elected him as a circuit court judge. Long was a deacon and Sunday School teacher at First Baptist Church in St. Paul.

Death and legacy Long died on April 24, 1988, in Abingdon.

Long received an honorary degree from the University of Richmond in 1974.