L. Douglas Wilder, the nation's first elected black governor, announced Friday that he would not seek re-election as Richmond's mayor, likely bringing his storied political career to a close. The 77-year-old grandson of slaves announced his plans to retire during a meeting with Richmond city department directors, then issued a news release. He didn't disclose his future plans. "I've done everything you can do," Wilder said in a brief, televised comment. He declined requests for interviews.

Wilder was elected mayor in 2004, the first popularly elected mayor of Richmond since the 1940s - and a decade after he left the governor's office.

During his time as mayor, Wilder's approval plunged amid poor relations with the City Council and the school board. By last October, polling by the Richmond Times-Dispatch showed only 35 percent of those surveyed would support Wilder for re-election.

His decision to leave office does not come as a surprise because of his sinking popularity, and he had not mobilized a re-election campaign. Several rivals, including a popular Democratic state legislator and an estranged longtime Wilder adviser, announced their candidacy weeks ago.

Wilder's mayoral troubles came to a peak last fall when he brazenly ringed City Hall with moving vans and a cordon of police to carry out an unannounced nighttime eviction of the school board during a fight about funding and accountability.

A court halted the chaos in a dramatic midnight hearing, then ruled this year that Wilder lacked the authority to force the education offices into rented space in an office building.

Last month, news reports revealed that Wilder had accepted $25,000 in personal car allowances while taxpayers spent $1.2 million to pay for the mayor's security detail, drivers and the city car in which he rides.

Since leaving the governor's office in 1994, Wilder retained some influence in the political world. He is an adviser to Democrat Barack Obama (web|news|bio) - who could become the nation's first black president - and has been highly critical of former President Bill Clinton.

When Clinton, while campaigning in February for his wife in South Carolina, suggested that an Obama victory in that state would merely be a race-based award as it was for the Rev. Jesse Jackson two decades earlier, Wilder said Clinton's remarks damaged his standing among black voters.

"A time comes and a time goes. The president has had his time," Wilder said in February.

Wilder began his political career in 1969 as a state senator. He wore an Afro haircut and challenged the white majority by pushing for a holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and demanding that "Carry Me Back to Old Virginia," be abandoned as the state song for lyrics that speak of an "old darkey" who "labored so hard for old massa."

He was elected lieutenant governor in 1985 and governor in 1989, when he defeated Republican Marshall Coleman by only 7,000 votes. He remained the nation's only elected black governor until Deval Patrick's election in Massachusetts in 2006.

Wilder's inauguration as governor, on the grounds of what had been the Capitol of the Confederacy, symbolized a turning point for Virginia and the South. Thirty years earlier, Virginia had defied the Supreme Court mandate to desegregate public schools with a strategy of "massive resistance."

He was praised for guiding the state through a crippling recession during the outbreak of the first Persian Gulf War by shepherding austere budgets without tax increases.

But Wilder had become unpopular by the end of the single, nonrenewable term Virginia's Constitution uniquely allows its governors.

Politically, he relished his role as a power broker, but the unpredictable Wilder often vexed fellow Democrats who sought his blessing. He had friendly relations at times with his Republican successors, George Allen and Jim Gilmore, and in 1997 refused to endorse Gilmore's Democratic opponent, Donald Beyer.

"Doug has always been willing to offer an independent voice, and he and I have not always agreed, but I have enormous respect for his public service," said Democratic former Gov. Mark R. Warner, who managed Wilder's campaign for governor and is heavily favored to win the seat of retiring Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va.

Had Wilder sought another term as mayor, he would have faced Del. Dwight C. Jones, a 14-year legislator who has a loyal following as pastor of a large, predominantly black church in the city.

"Doug Wilder opened doors for many African-American candidates throughout the country," Jones said in response to Wilder's announcement.

Written By BOB LEWIS

Email To A Friend