Ex-Fla. gov Reubin Askew, civil rights champion, dies

Former Florida governor Reubin Askew, a champion of racial equality who guided the state through school busing in the 1970s, died early Thursday in Tallahassee. He was 85 years old.

The Democrat in recent months battled pneumonia, hip surgery and a stroke. Askew had been in the hospital since Saturday and died surrounded by family.

A pivotal figure in Florida history, Askew championed racial reconciliation as a state legislator in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when other Southern politicians were preaching “massive resistance” to the U.S. Supreme Court and promising to preserve segregation.

MORE: Reubin Askew’s impact on Florida

He made a corporate income tax the centerpiece of his race for governor in 1970, turning his back on big business money that could have greased his campaign.

Askew was among the first of the “New South” governors — racial moderates who focused on economic development, education and civil rights. Jimmy Carter in Georgia, Dale Bumpers in Arkansas and John West in South Carolina were among that 1970 class of governors who changed the South’s political direction.

As Florida’s chief executive from 1971 to 1979, Askew appointed the state’s first black Supreme Court justice, Joseph Hatchett, who later became a federal judge. He also appointed the first black department head of modern times, Secretary of Community Affairs Athalie Range of Miami, and named Jesse McCrary secretary of State.

Born in Muskogee, Okla., Askew moved to Pensacola as a child. He was an Army paratrooper in 1946-48, attaining the rank of sergeant, then attended Florida State University graduating as student body president in 1951. He joined the Air Force in 1951-53 and served as an intelligence officer, then earned his law degree at the University of Florida.

He and his wife, Donna Lou Harper, were married in 1956 and had a son and daughter, Kevin and Angela Askew.

Throughout his career, Askew did things that hurt him politically, and won anyway. In 1972, when then-Alabama Gov. George Wallace was riding the school-busing issue to leadership in Florida’s first presidential primary, Republicans and conservative Democrats proposed a busing “straw ballot” question and a school-prayer issue before the voters. Askew, a religious man, opposed restoration of prayer to public schools and countered the busing issue with a question of his own — asking voters if they favored lawful integration of the schools.

Floridians voted yes on all three.

Similarly, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down capital punishment nationwide in 1972, other Southern governors sent up a cry for its immediate restoration. Askew, an attorney and former prosecutor, resisted calls for a special legislative session and consulted advocates and opponents, including former governor LeRoy Collins, before agreeing to support a limited restoration that he intended to apply only in the most heinous killings.

Askew joined a Miami law firm after leaving office but returned to public life as President Carter’s foreign trade envoy in 1979-80. He briefly ran for president in 1984, finishing last in the New Hampshire primary, and tried to re-enter politics again in 1987 when then-Sen. Lawton Chiles announced he would not seek a fourth term in Washington. Tired of the constant need to raise money, Askew dropped out of the 1988 Senate race, which was won by Connie Mack, a Republican.

By Bill Cotterell, USA Today