Howard Carwile


Howard Hearnes Carwile was an American lawyer and politician.

Early and family life

Howard Carwile was born in Charlotte County, Virginia, to parents Willis Early Carwile
and Allie Taylor ; they were tenant tobacco farmers. Howard was one of 13 children. His great-great-grandfather Jacob Carwile, served as a soldier in the American Revolutionary War.
In 1948, he married Violet Virginia Talley, daughter of John C. Talley and Virginia Magnetta Cullingsworth, and a divorced beautician. Howard and Violet had one son, Howard H. Carwile, Jr., and one grandchild, Taylor Lane Carwile. Both Howard and Violet died in Richmond, Virginia.

Education

Career

Howard Carwile was known as a fiery, passionate trial attorney in Richmond, Virginia. He opposed the Byrd Organization in his early years, a machine of Conservative Democrats led by Harry Flood Byrd which dominated Virginia's politics from the 1920s until the mid-1960s.
Carwile represented many black clients as a trial lawyer in the 1940s through 1960s in Richmond. He was an ever-vigilant watchdog over the Richmond Police Department and champion for reform of Virginia's prisons and a general political gadfly. He was known for his colorful rhetoric in public, such as calling a city-hall boondoggle he disliked a "horrendous heap of hokum" and his campaign style, including an automobile completely covered in Carwile bumper-stickers. Richmonders appreciated his verbal theatrics, and in the 1970s it was not uncommon to hear someone say he or she was "shocked and appalled", a frequent Carwile exclamation. His case against Richmond Newspapers concerning an editorial by the Richmond Times-Dispatch reached the Virginia Supreme Court in 1954 and was decided in his favor. A collection of his papers is housed in the Special Collections and Archives section of the library of Virginia Commonwealth University.
Richmond voters elected Carwile to the city council in 1966 and re-elected him several times. In 1973, voters in Richmond and Henrico County elected Carwile as their representative in the Virginia House of Delegates, so he resigned his municipal position, but only served a single term. His successor, fellow Virginia lawyer Gerald L. Baliles, would later become Governor of Virginia, a post which decades earlier had eluded Carwile.

Government offices held

Served on Virginia House committees:
  • Health, Welfare & Institutions
  • Militia and Police

Memberships

Published and broadcast works