Don W. Williamson

Donald Wayne Williamson, usually known as Don Williamson (born October 5, 1927), is an American businessman and politician in Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish and the largest city in north Louisiana. From 1968 through 1980, he served successively in each of the houses of the Louisiana State Legislature. A Democrat, he served in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1968 to 1972 and then in the Louisiana State Senate from 1972 to 1980.

Earlier, from 1958–1968, Williamson was elected to the Caddo Parish School Board, where he also served as president. Williamson ran a strong but unsuccessful race for state insurance commissioner in 1979 and failed twice in bids for mayor of Shreveport in 1982 and 1986.

After retiring from politics, Williamson moved into the Republican Party in the early 1990s, to express his opposition to the administration of Democratic U.S. President Bill Clinton.^[1]

Early life and education

Williamson was born in Vivian in northern Caddo Parish to Earl Guyton Williamson, Sr. (1903–1992), and the former Mamie Greer (1904–1948). He attended public schools and graduated from Vivian High School (later North Caddo High School) in 1946. He attended the Methodist-affiliated Centenary College in Shreveport for a year.

Marriage and family

In 1945, while still in high school, he married his childhood sweetheart, Norma Herring of Vivian. They had three children together: Sherry (born 1948), Guy Clifford (born 1953), and Randall Whitfield "Randy" Williamson (born 1957). The couple were wed for nearly fifty-seven years until Norma's death of a sudden stroke in 2002.

In 2003, after retiring from business, Williamson married Rachel (Nelson) Dunn. She had previously been married to Forrest Dunn, and they had three children together: Linda (born 1947), now of Bossier City, and Robbie Jack Dunn (born 1949) of Shreveport. Their youngest son James Forrest "Jimmy" Dunn (1958–1985), was killed in an automobile accident in Oklahoma.^[2]

Business career

From 1949 to 1951, Williamson moved North for work. He worked for General Electric in the building of the United States Navy's atomic fusion plant in Schenectady, New York. This plant developed the nuclear-powered submarine advanced by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover. As it was classified as essential civilian employment, Williamson was granted a deferment from the draft in the Korean War.

Designer Showroom furniture gallery in Shreveport

Returning to Vivian in 1951, Williamson purchased Vivian Drugs, later known as North Caddo Drugs. After several years, he went into the furniture business. His Vivian Furniture Company was renamed as "Designer Showroom" in 1976, when he moved the operation to Shreveport. The business is now run by his two sons. Two of his grandson also work there: Cliff Williamson and William B. Rowe, III, a son of his daughter Sherry. The sons and grandsons are all interior designers. Williamson also has two other grandchildren.^[3]

In addition to his furniture store, Willamson went into the real estate business in Vivian, a community of nearly four thousand. He played a major role in the development of the southern part of the town, which became the site of the area Wal-Mart and restaurant outlets.^[4]

Political career

Williamson entered politics at the local level, running for the parish school board. He served for several years, including a term as president, when the body had twenty-one members. Presiding over meetings with so many members was difficult. In 1965, the board was ordered by the federal courts to desegregate, as segregated public schools had been ruled unconstitutional in 1954. Williamson as board president was credited with guiding the process forward.

Williamson said that during this period, he made many friends in the African American community. A number supported his later political campaigns, including Alphonse J. Jackson (1927–2014), who later was also elected to the state House, and his daughter, Lydia Patrice Jackson (born 1960), now state Senator from District 39; both are Democrats.

Williamson worked to preserve the integrity of the schools and to treat all citizens fairly in the process of desegregation. "The community responded in a positive way, and things went smoothly," he said.^[5] During the hearing of the desegregation suit, Williamson spent a week in the court of U.S. District Judge Benjamin C. Dawkins, Jr., who had earlier served as president of the Caddo Parish School Board.

As a state representative, Williamson supported legislation to reduce the Caddo Parish School Board to nine members.^[6] Billy Guin disagreed with Williamson about the desirability of smaller school boards. In 1964, Guin was one of the first three Republicans elected to the Caddo Parish School Board since Reconstruction. African Americans were still largely disenfranchised, but conservative whites were shifting to the Republican Party. Guin contends that smaller boards enhance the power of interest groups. He believed that having more members ensured that the overall well-being of the community is served, rather than the interest of vocal minorities.^[7]

As state Senator, 1972–1980

In 1976, Williamson chaired the House–Senate Joint Committee on Education. From that berth, he pushed for:

(1) the establishment of Louisiana Public Broadcasting, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)

(2) the bill to make Louisiana State University at Shreveport a four-year institution

(3) the enlargement and reorganization of the state vocational education system. The latter changes made a vocational school available to nearly all students within thirty miles of their residences.^[13]

He and state Senator Edgar G. "Sonny" Mouton, Jr., of Lafayette, a 1979 gubernatorial hopeful, were the point men on education in the administration of Governor Edwin Washington Edwards. Williamson also worked closely with Representative Joe Henry Cooper of De Soto Parish on educational issues. Williamson represented Louisiana on the Education Commission of the States, a national federation promoting reforms in education. He also chaired the Senate Health and Welfare Committee.^[13]

From 1973 to 1976, Williamson was vice-chairman of the Southern Growth Policies Board, having served under two chairmen of the panel, Governor Jimmy Carter, Democrat of Georgia (1973–1974) and Republican Governor James Holshouser of North Carolina (1975–1976). The board, which meets three times annually in Atlanta, seeks to alleviate problems stemming from growth, including environmental issues and dislocation from urban renewal. The board itself is headquartered at Duke University in Durham. Williamson presided over board meetings in the absences of Carter or Holshouser.^[13]

Williamson's Caddo Parish Senate colleagues were, in his first term, Cecil K. Carter, Jr., and in his second term, Virginia Shehee, both of Shreveport. In both terms, Jackson B. Davis, a Shreveport attorney, was Williamson's senior Caddo Parish colleague.

Defeating Jimmy Wilson, 1975

In 1975, Williamson sought reelection to the state Senate from District 39 and faced an unexpected challenger, state Representative Wilson, who was completing a single term in the House during Williamson's first term in the Senate. Still a Democrat at the time, Wilson ran as an advocate of right-to-work legislation, which the legislature adopted in 1976. Wilson claimed that he would address business growth issues more effectively than had Williamson. Williamson questioned Wilson's high rate of absenteeism in critical state House votes and ran a clever advertisement which proclaimed: "He [Wilson] didn't vote for you. Why should you vote for him?" Williamson said that Wilson was not satisfied as a representative but quickly eyed the state Senate and even planned to run for governor.^[14]

After his loss to Williamson, Wilson switched parties and made unsuccessful campaigns in 1978 and 1980 as a Republican for the Fourth Congressional District seat vacated by the longtime U.S. Representative Joe David "Joe D." Waggonner, Jr., of Plain Dealing in northern Bossier Parish. The seat first went to Democrat Anthony Claude "Buddy" Leach, then of Leesville in western Louisiana, and has since been filled by Democrats Buddy Roemer and Cleo Fields and Republicans Jim McCrery, John Cooksey, and John C. Fleming.^[15]

Running for insurance commissioner

Williamson said that the state Senate was consuming so much of his time that he did not wish to seek a third term. Bob Jones had said much the same when he decided to run for governor in 1975, rather than to seek reelection to the Senate. Therefore, Williamson decided to run for a statewide administrative office in the 1979 jungle primary. He chose the insurance commissioner's race largely because the incumbent, Sherman A. Bernard, a native of Terrebonne Parish who had become a house mover in Westwego in Jefferson Parish in the New Orleans suburbs, was under fire for corrupt practices in the handling of official duties. Bernard was later imprisoned for thirty months for extortion and was finally released by the Bureau of Prisons in 1996.^[16]

Williamson won the endorsement of every major newspaper in the state, and he campaigned actively in most of the parishes. Cajun humorist Justin Wilson, whose father, Harry D. Wilson, was a Longite agriculture commissioner, campaigned for him. Bernard failed to win a majority in the primary, and a general election between the top two Democrats, Bernard and Williamson, was hence held at the same time that Republican David C. Treen and Democrat Louis Lambert, then a public service commissioner, contested the governorship.^[17]

Still, Bernard prevailed with 627,247 (50.3 percent) to Williamson's 618,952 (49.7 percent). Williamson ran well in Shreveport, Lafayette, Lake Charles, and Baton Rouge, but he was annihilated in Orleans Parish, particularly the predominantly black Ninth Ward. Bernard also undoubtedly benefited by his being from the Orleans metro area. Williamson said that he believed that there may have been fraudulent practices in the count in New Orleans but he did not request a recount because it would have cost his campaign another $100,000 if he finished on the short end of a second official tally.^[18]

Running twice for mayor of Shreveport

Coming so close in the insurance commissioner's race, Williamson tried once again in politics: he contested the mayoralty of Shreveport in 1982 in an effort to succeed one-term Mayor William T. "Bill" Hanna, a fellow Democrat and, like Williamson's father, an automobile dealer, but Ford, rather than Chevrolet. Williamson's principal opponent was Shreveport attorney John Brennan Hussey. The two waged activist campaigns, and while Williamson finished with more than 40 percent of the vote, Hussey emerged the winner. Williamson said that as mayor he would have tried to promote tourism in the Shreveport-Bossier City area. He favored reinstituting the former "Louisiana Hayride" Country and Western music forum. "I just wanted to have Branson (the resort city in Missouri) in Shreveport," he said. Williamson said that he would have been a "mover and shaker" as mayor, whereas he believed Hussey would have been less active in the office satisfied to "clip ribbons" in friendly photo ops. Williamson said that when he went to meet with the editorial boards of both Shreveport newspapers, Shreveport Times and the defunct Shreveport Journal, one declined to meet with him after having invited him to appear because the papers had already decided to endorse Hussey.^[18]

In 1986, Williamson challenged Hussey again but did not run actively. He merely placed his name on the ballot and spoke to individual voters. He spent virtually no money. He again exceeded 40 percent of the vote, but Hussey won a second term. Williamson said that Hussey is a "fine person", but he felt that Hussey needed an opponent in 1986. Hussey was term-limited in 1990. He was succeeded by Hazel F. Beard (born 1930), Shreveport's first Republican since Reconstruction and its first and thus far only female mayor.^[19]

Williamson's father and brothers in politics

Earl Williamson, Sr., was an alderman and mayor of Vivian and a member of the Caddo Parish Police Jury (now Caddo Parish Commission, the equivalent of county commission in other states) from 1933 to 1972 and 1979 to 1980. Earl Williamson was also a leading supporter in Caddo Parish of Huey Pierce Long, Jr., and Earl Kemp Long, whose political appeal transformed Louisiana from the 1920s to the 1950s. Earl Williamson was personally close to the Longs as well as a loyal political backer. Don Williamson, however, did not share his father's commitment to Longism. He was a reformer in politics from the beginning of his career to the end. He remained a Democrat like his father while he ran for office but later switched to the Republican Party.^[20]

Williamson's older brother, Earl G. Williamson, Jr. (May 18, 1923 – April 25, 2015), managed with their brother, James, their father's Williamson Motors (GM) dealership, which operated for sixty-five years in Vivian. During World War II, stationed with the 91st Bombardment Group of the 8th Army Air Forces at RAF Bassingbourn, England, he completed thirty daylight bombing missions over Germany. He flew such B-17s as Hi-Ho Silver, Nine-O-Nine, Wee Willie, Chennault's Pappy, and Little Miss Mischief. He survived a crash landing of the Blue Dreams. Excerpts from his diary of the thirty mission were published in a 1994 issue of National Geographic. Williamson, Jr., received the Distinguished Flying Cross and four Air Medals. He was a champion tennis player for Northwestern State University and a long-time civic figure in Vivian though he did not hold public office.^[21]

Three other of Don Williamson's brothers developed political careers. James Whitfield Williamson (June 12, 1925 — November 15, 2008), in their father's legacy, served as alderman (fourteen years) and mayor of Vivian (also fourteen years, from 1972 to 1986) and for a single four-year term on the Caddo Parish Commission.^[22] A half-brother, Tedford Fielden Williamson (born 1957) of Salado in Bell County, Texas, is a former member of the Round Rock City Council in Round Rock in coincidentally Williamson County. He is a Republican but in Texas all municipal offices are elected on nonpartisan ballots. Tedford Williamson is one of two sons of Earl Williamson from his second marriage to the former Mary Jane Hearne.^[23] The other half-brother, Clayton Lamar Williamson (born 1952) was city manager in three small Texas communities, including Friona in Parmer County in the Panhandle, and then a power company official before he launched a career in counseling.^[24]

Don Williamson has been an active Southern Baptist deacon for more than a half century and is a member of the First Baptist Church of Shreveport. He is a member of the Masonic lodge, Lions International, and the Downtown Shreveport Rotary Club, one of the largest of all the chapters of Rotary International.^[25]

References