William M. Tuck

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William Munford Tuck (September 28, 1896 - June 9, 1983) served as Governor of Virginia from 1946 to 1950 as a Democrat.

He was the youngest son of Halifax County, Virginia tobacco warehouseman Robert James Tuck and Virginia Susan Fritts. Tuck graduated from the College of William and Mary, earning a teacher's certificate. He served in U.S. Marine Corps in 1917 in the Caribbean. He graduated from Washington and Lee University Law School in 1921 and was admitted to Virginia bar then was a Halifax, Virginia attorney who also served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly and as Lieutenant Governor of Virginia from 1942 to 1946. As governor, he reorganized state government, enacted a right-to-work law, and created a state water pollution control agency.

Tuck was elected as a Democrat to U.S. Congress seat in 1953 to assume vacancy created by Thomas Bahnson Stanley who had resigned to run for Governor of Virginia. There he opposed most major items of civil rights legislation during the 1950s and 1960s. He also promised "massive resistance" to the Supreme Court's 1954 decision banning segregation, Brown v. Board of Education.

He is buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery, South Boston, Virginia.

He was a delegate to Democratic National Conventions of 1948 and 1952.

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Preceded by
Colgate W. Darden Jr.
Governor of Virginia
1946–1950
Succeeded by
John S. Battle
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