Don Yarborough - Progressive Texas Leader (obit)

[sonias]

Texas Observer
Don Yarborough
Progressive Texas Leader
Dec. 15, 1925-Sept. 23, 2009

Don Yarborough, an important progressive politician who fought to modernize Texas in several bids for the governor’s office in the 1960s, died Sept. 23 at his home in Houston following a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War and held a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

When Yarborough first announced his campaign for governor in 1962, Willie Morris described his political style in this magazine as “flamboyant and somewhat thunderous, his platform prose is rich and often evangelic. Although he makes it clear the tone of his campaign will be New Frontierish, and although he is unmistakably a product of Texas’ post-war reform liberalism, his idiom is stocked with the phrases of the old American progressives.”

Yarborough shared a last name with U.S. Sen. Ralph Yarborough, but no family or political relationship. Instead, he represented a real threat to the conservatives who ran the Democratic Party in Texas at the time. Yarborough’s run for governor is one of the key reasons President John F. Kennedy came to Texas in 1963, when he was assassinated in Dallas.

Throughout his political life, Yarborough fought within the Democratic Party against the conservative bloc that was dominated by corporate interests at the time. He advocated civil rights, women’s rights and technological and social development across the state.

(more at link above)

Again someone I wasn't very familiar with but apparently a really good man. If the Texas Observer is giving him this kind of eulogy then he rightly deserves it.

May he rest in peace. Condolences to the Don Yarborough family.

Sonia

[Zen Democrat]

1. I remember Don Yarborough. He was a favorite of Labor.

Although I remember that the Kennedy visit to Texas had more to do with the Connally-Johnson/Ralph Yarborough conflict. Kennedy forced Connally into his car, as LBJ was insisting that Kennedy ride with Ralph Yarborough, with Connally in Johnson's car. Kennedy reminded Lyndon that the President would be riding with the state's top elected official -- and, reportedly, LBJ was furious.

[sonias]

2. Interesting story

His early progressive views would have made him a good friend of labor as well as a lot of us today.

Sonia

[Aragorn]

3. These are the Texas democrats

we USED to have. Both Yarboroughs, not Yarbrough. Bentsen. Tower not so much.