Steny Hoyer: “On April 18, 1998 Senator Terry Sanford died at the age of eighty after a long battle with cancer. He was a Governor, a…”

“On April 18, 1998 Senator Terry Sanford died at the age of eighty after a long battle with cancer. He was a Governor, a Senator, a two-time Presidential candidate, a lawyer, an author and a president of Duke University. Growing up in the segregated south, the town of Laurinburg, North Carolina, young Terry learned the value of hard work and money from the abject poverty his family lived in after his father's hardware store went bankrupt. After a stint as a paratrooper in Europe during World War II, Terry Sanford returned to his native North Carolina to attend the University of North Carolina law school and to become the progressive voice of the Democratic Party in North Carolina. In 1960, Terry Sanford ran for Governor of North Carolina and faced a spirited campaign against an avowed segregationist. He was forced into a run-off but won with 56% of the vote and went on to become Governor of the State of North Carolina. Terry Sanford assumed the governorship at a very turbulent time in the history of North Carolina and the South.”