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Claude R. Kirk Jr.

Claude Roy Kirk Jr. (7 January 1926-28 September 2011) was the Republican Governor of Florida from 3 January 1967 to 5 January 1971, succeeding W. Haydon Burns and preceding Reubin Askew. He was the first Republican governor of Florida since Reconstruction.

Biography[]

Claude Roy Kirk Jr. was born in San Bernardino, California in 1926, and he grew up in Chicago, Illinois and Montgomery, Alabama before serving in the US Marine Corps during World War II and the Korean War. He cofounded a life insurance company in Jacksonville, Florida in 1956, and, in 1960, he left the Democrats for the Republican Party and backed Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater's presidential bids. He was elected Governor in 1967, becoming Florida's first Republican governor since Reconstruction. During his tenure, Kirk granted Walt Disney World self-governing status, passed a new state constitution in 1968, resolved a 1968 teachers' strike, oversaw the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, and opposed court-ordered mandatory busing. His rivalry with fellow Republican William C. Cramer and his confrontational style cost him re-election in 1970, and he died in 2011.

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