Don Yarborough

Donald Howard "Don" Yarborough
Don Yarborough
Personal details
Born	(1925-12-15)December 15, 1925 New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, USA
Died	September 23, 2009(2009-09-23) (aged 83) Houston, Harris County, Texas
Political party	Democratic
Alma mater	University of Texas
Occupation	Attorney
Religion	Episcopalian

Donald Howard Yarborough (December 15, 1925 - September 23, 2009), was a liberal Democratic politician who was the first Southern politician to endorse the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Yarborough, an attorney in Houston, Texas, ran for governor of Texas in 1962, 1964, and 1968. In 1962, he came close to winning the primary runoff election against John B. Connally, Jr., having polled 49 percent of the ballots. Other intraparty rivals, considered conservatives, included the state attorney general, Will Wilson, highway commissioner Marshall Formby, and General Edwin A. Walker, who made anticommunism the centerpiece of his race. The Republican gubernatorial nominee, Jack Cox, an oil equipment executive from Houston, was also a strong conservative and a former Democratic member of the Texas House of Representatives.

Although Yarborough never became governor, his campaigns contributed strongly to the reform of the Texas Democratic Party, uniting, behind Yarborough's candidacy, traditional New Deal loyalists, organized labor, African Americans, Mexican Americans, and reform-seeking liberals, thereby enabling this coalition to capture local constituencies in the Texas House and Senate and build organizations later drawn upon by Mark White and Ann Richards.