Luther H. Hodges
Luther Hartwell Hodges was an American businessman and politician. After a career in textile manufacturing, he entered public service, gaining some state appointments. Elected as lieutenant governor of North Carolina in 1952, he succeeded to the Governor's office in 1954 after the death of the incumbent. He was elected in 1956 to a full four-year term, serving in total as the 64th governor of the state of North Carolina from 1954 to 1961.
Biography
Hodges was born in Cascade, Pittsylvania County, Virginia, on March 9, 1898. At the age of two, he moved with his family to Spray. After growing up there, he lived much of his life in Rockingham County, North Carolina.Hodges left for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at age 17, where he was a member of the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies, and moved back to Eden after graduation. He went to work at Carolina Cotton and Woolen Mills in Leaksville. On June 24, 1922, he married Marthe Elizabeth Blakeney in Monroe, North Carolina. In 1923, he helped form the Leaksville Rotary Club, which later became known as the Eden Rotary.
Carolina Cotton was later purchased by Marshall Field. Hodges continued to work for the company, working his way up from millworker to executive positions, until he retired to enter politics. In the 1940s, he gained gubernatorial appointments to the state Board of Education and the Highway and Public Works Commission. In 1945, he served as a consultant to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and to the U.S. Army in occupied Germany. He retired in 1950 and returned to North Carolina.
Governor
Hodges ran for office as lieutenant governor as a Democrat in 1952 and was elected. He succeeded to the position of governor in November 1954 upon the death of Governor William B. Umstead in office. In 1956, Hodges was elected on his own account to a full four-year term as governor. Because North Carolina had a one-term limit for governors at that time, Hodges had the longest continuous tenure in the office until the state constitution was changed and Jim Hunt was elected to a second term in 1980.During his time in office, Governor Hodges championed what he called "business progressivism." His modernization efforts included the new Department of Administration to streamline state government; industrial recruitment programs to diversify North Carolina's economy beyond agriculture and textiles; upgrading roads and utilities; and most important, creating the nationally famous Research Triangle Park in 1959, which linked advanced academic research and inventive young entrepreneurs.To promote better education, Hodges increased funding for public schools and raised teacher salaries. He expanded the state's community college system and encouraged the University of North Carolina system.
However, Hodges faced resistance from rural conservatives who opposed increased state spending and federal involvement. Thanks to his business background and moderate approach on racial issues he built coalitions across traditional political lines. For this work, Hodges is credited with leading North Carolina's dramatic transformation from one of the most impoverished states in the Union to one of its most prosperous.
Civil rights
In 1959, Hodges became involved in the Kissing Case, where two young African-American boys had been convicted of assault and molestation because a white girl had kissed them each on the cheek. They had been sentenced to the state reformatory. A range of activists, civil rights organizations, Eleanor Roosevelt and President Eisenhower, in addition to the international press, pressured Hodges for clemency. After three months Hodges pardoned them, but refused to apologize. Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt "led an international campaign on their behalf."Secretary of Commerce
In 1961 he was appointed as United States Secretary of Commerce under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, serving until 1965.Later years
He returned to Chapel Hill, North Carolina and served as chairman of Research Triangle Park, a major facility established during his tenure as governor. In 1967, he served a one-year term as president of Rotary International.>He died on October 6, 1974, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and is buried at the Overlook Cemetery in Eden, North Carolina. A monument was erected in his honor near a water fountain in Eden's Freedom Park.