Yarborough, Ralph W.

Born in Chandler, Texas, on June 8, 1903, Ralph Webster Yarborough went on to become a United States Senator and the leader of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party in Texas during the tumultuous 1960s. After graduating from the University of Texas law school in 1927, Yarborough joined a law firm in in El Paso. The following year, Yarborough married Opal Warren and they had one son, Richard. Hired as an assistant attorney general in 1931, Yarborough endeavored to secure the interests of the Texas Permanent School Fund. His work in the Attorney General’s office resulted in establishing the right of public schools and universities to oil-fund revenues, which netted billions of dollars for public education. Yarborough’s first foray into politics came in 1936 through an appointment by his mentor Governor James Allred to a state district judgeship in Austin, an office that Yarborough secured in the election that same year. Two years later, he finished third in the race for attorney general.

During the Second World War, Yarborough completed tours in Europe and the Pacific with the Ninety-seventh Infantry Division. Discharged as a lieutenant colonel, he had earned a Bronze Star and a Combat Medal. He returned to Austin in 1946 to resume his law practice. In 1952, Yarborough waged an unsuccessful grassroots campaign in the Democratic primary against the incumbent governor Allan Shivers. The campaign marked the first of many in which Yarborough aligned himself with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and against conservatives like Shivers. Asserting that Yarborough supported forced integration and was backed by Communist labor unions striking in Port Arthur, Shivers defeated Yarborough again in the 1954 primary. After another failed bid for the governorship in 1956, this time to Senator Price Daniel, Sr., Yarborough bested a field of twenty-one candidates vying to fill Daniel’s vacated senate seat.

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