Longtime SC Democratic Party icon and professor Don Fowler has died
Don Fowler, a longtime icon, teacher and master of South Carolina Democratic Party politics, died at his Columbia home Tuesday night.
He was 85.
News of his death was confirmed by state Democratic Party chairman Trav Robertson.
“The Democrat’s Democrat, Don Fowler passed away this evening,” Robertson tweeted Tuesday night. “He was a professor, father, chair of the DNC, chair of the SCDP, campaign guru, supporter, but most of all ... a friend. I shall miss his advice and long letters. Our love goes out to Carol, Donnie and Cissy.”
Fowler, a consummate party insider, had been diagnosed with leukemia earlier. Robertson said he had recently been feeling tired, so his longtime wife, Carol, who also was active in party politics, took him to the hospital. Robertson said Fowler tested positive for COVID-19 at the hospital, where he stayed for several days before Carol brought him home, where he died.
“The heart of the South Carolina Democratic Party for a long time has stopped beating,” U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, who first met Fowler in 1969, said in a statement Wednesday. “Politics coursed through my dear friend Don Fowler’s veins. Although he has passed on, his legacy remains strong in the beloved Democratic Party he helped build and sustain.”
For nine years, from 1971 to 1980, Fowler served as chair of the S.C. Democratic Party. In 1988, he served as CEO of the Democratic National Convention held in Atlanta that nominated Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis for president. During the presidency of Bill Clinton, in 1995 and 1996, Fowler served as chair of the Democratic National Committee.
Fowler remained close to the Clintons and backed Hillary Clinton in her 2008 run for the presidency — a bid that ran into trouble in the South Carolina primary, where an upstart first-term Democratic U.S. senator from Illinois by the name of Barack Obama beat Clinton by a surprisingly large margin. Obama went on to capture what had been a sure nomination for Clinton and was elected president in November 2008.
Former President Clinton tweeted Wednesday, “Don Fowler was a good man with a sharp mind and a big heart whose life embodied his commitment to opportunity and inclusion for all Americans.”
Fowler reached an audience far beyond South Carolina politics and state university walls, from his national political roles and on shows such as “Meet the Press.”
Fowler was also instrumental in making the S.C. Democratic Party, once a nearly all-white segregationist party, a more inclusive party after Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in the mid-1960s.
“Don was very instrumental in getting Jim Felder and I elected in 1970 to the (SC) House of Representatives,” said I.S. Leevy Johnson, a Columbia attorney who, along with Felder and Herbert Fielding of Charleston, was one of the first African Americans elected to the State House in the 20th century.
“Don’s leadership dramatically changed the culture of the Democratic Party,” Johnson said. “He made it more inclusive.”
The Fowlers were known for hosting dinners or informal drop-in gatherings attheir house on Kilbourne Road for Democratic presidential candidates. More recently this year, the Fowlers opened up their Columbia home ahead of the state’s Democratic presidential primary to candidates and Democratic voters, oftentimes stuffing every person inside where the candidate would get a few minutes to share why they were running, answer voter questions and take pictures.
It was the Fowlers’ home that Clyburn and his late wife, Emily, first met “a young Joe Biden” — now president-elect of the United States — after his first reelection to the United States Senate, Clyburn said.
“Don was always the connector, the one bringing political friends and, sometimes, enemies together,” said Clyburn, who was often a guest lecturer in Fowler’s classes. “His Southern charm and gentle spirit belied his fierce competitiveness and strength of character.”
Dwight Drake, a Columbia lawyer and longtime Democrat, said sometimes he and Don could be on different sides in the primaries, despite both working on Democratic campaigns.
“But the one thing about Don, when you were on the quote-unquote ‘other side’ from him, you could always count on him being decent, straight, honorable and good-natured. We’d go to lunch to argue about something and wind up laughing at one another’s jokes. And, when he was party chairman, part of his character was to be able to listen to people with different points of view and try to reach some middle ground.”
Fowler, a tall, lanky man who was known for being unflappable, erudite and helpful, was also a longtime political science professor at the University of South Carolina, where he was revered by generations of students.
“He was always willing to help people, especially young people,” Robertson said. “At the beginning of every course, he learned about each of his students and put down the information on an index card so he would know something about them.”
One of those students was Robert Goings, who took a seminar on politics in his senior year in 2002 at Wofford from Fowler, who drove up from Columbia every week.
“He was probably the best professor I ever had,” said Goings, explaining that Fowler brought into the classroom a wealth of experience and insight gleaned from actual experience in many levels of politics. “He knew what he was talking about.”
One thing Goings remembers is that “he really taught us the importance of civility in politics. Whether you were a Republican, a Democrat, a Libertarian or a conservative, he taught us to respect each other’s political persuasion and to learn from it. I don’t know how many times he said, ‘Republicans can learn a lot of Democrats, and Democrats can learn a lot from Republicans.’ ”
“If there were more Don Fowlers today, our country would be in a much better place,” Goings said.
Former state Sen. Joel Lourie, a Richland County Democrat, had known Fowler since childhood, when Lourie’s father, Isadore Lourie, was a Democratic state senator.
“I always called him ‘Mr. Chairman,’ ” said Lourie, speaking of Fowler’s stints as national chair of the national Democratic Party. Fowler also was chair of the 1988 Democratic National Convention. “When you speak of South Carolina’s great political icons, Don Fowler is at the top of the list.”
After Fowler’s high profile days in the national spotlight, Fowler loved politics so much he took the humble post as Richland County Democratic Party chair, Lourie recalled.
Last month, said Lourie, when he and a few longtime friends of the Fowlers had lunch with Don and Carol, he was lamenting of the sharply negative turn American politics had taken.
“He was a fierce competitor and a loyal Democrat to the core but he recognized that to get things done in politics, you had to bring people together with opposing views, from different partisan backgrounds, and make compromises,” Lourie said. “He was optimistic that Joe Biden could help the country heal.”
Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said Wednesday that in 1996 Fowler, then a top national Democratic official, had helped him win his first sheriff’s election.
After winning the sheriff’s post, Lott went to Washington where Fowler got him a choice seat at President Clinton’s second inauguration and then — to Lott’s surprise — introduced him at an important inaugural event filled with muckety-mucks from around the country. “It was a big ball room, and he just stopped everything and introduced me as the newly-elected Democratic sheriff. It made me feel so good, me just a little sheriff from South Carolina, having never been in politics,” Lott said. “We’ve been good friends ever since.”
Key advice Fowler gave him, Lott said, was this: “He said, ‘You’ve just won an election. But that’s just the beginning. You need to realize you’ve got to keep working and stay in touch with the people every day.’ ”
Fowler, who was born in Spartanburg and was a Wofford graduate where he majored in psychology, also taught at The Citadel.
Trip King of Columbia, a Biden confidante who is regarded as one of the state’s premiere Democratic operatives, said for more than 40 years he talked to Fowler. “Don was always a great sounding board, and I always sought out his advice on stuff, and he always gave extraordinarily great advice — that’s something I’ve always appreciated — that, and his friendship.”
Fowler began teaching at the University of South Carolina in 1964, where he continued as an adjunct professor of American Politics in the Department of Political Science, according to The Citadel’s website.
Fowler served for 30 years in the United States Army as an active duty officer and reservist. He retired in 1987. He was a member of the Washington Street United Methodist Church and was a lifetime member of the NAACP.
The outpouring of condolences came from both sides of the aisle.
Republican Gov. Henry McMaster said Wednesday Fowler was a “true gentleman in an area where it’s become the exception and no longer the rule.”
“He had a wonderful passion for his students, his country and state; and of course, his beloved party,” McMaster said. “Peggy and I are praying for Carol, the Fowler family and friends.”
Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin tweeted of Fowler, “A light illuminating our political discourse & progress for decades has just been forever dimmed.”
Former state Republican Party chairman Van Hipp tweeted that he first met Fowler when he was a teenager, later serving with him in the Army Reserves.
“We were on opposite sides of the political aisle, but I always enjoyed talking politics, military issues & all things South Carolina with him,” Hipp wrote. “Don was a patriot who loved America. #RIP”
South Carolina’s most recent Democratic Gov. Jim Hodges, tweeted Fowler was a major figure in state and national Democratic Party politics for more than 50 years: “I’m sure he was pleased that his last act was helping elect @JoeBiden,” he said.
Terry McAuliffe, the former governor of Virginia, in a tweet called Fowler a “Democrat’s Democrat.”
“Nobody loved the Party more than him,” he tweeted. “He will be greatly missed.”
Jaime Harrison, the former chairman of the state Democratic Party who ran an unsuccessful bid this year to unseat U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, tweeted, “Words can’t express how much I loved and admired Don Fowler.”
Harrison said his first memory meeting Fowler was while as an intern for Clyburn.
“Don was the @DNC Chair & we had just gotten a huge delivery of peaches from SC. Don asked me to deliver peaches across DC & my last stop was the prize — the White House. I was overjoyed & so appreciative of Don,” Harrison said.
Harrison continued: “Since that moment, every major step I’ve taken in Democratic politics, Don has been there to guide and mentor me. From SCDP Chair to my races for DNC Chair to US Senate, Don has been in my corner. I even taught his class with my friend and former SCGOP chair @MattMooreSC.”
Funeral arrangements are being handled by Leevy ‘s Funeral Home of Columbia. Final events have not yet been announced.
This story was originally published December 16, 2020 at 7:23 AM with the headline "Longtime SC Democratic Party icon and professor Don Fowler has died."
