Arthur Ravenel Cause of Death
Arthur Ravenel Cause of Death

Arthur Ravenel Cause of Death: Politician and Namesake of a Bridge Dies at Age 95

January 17, 2023 Benjamin Johnson News 0

Arthur Ravenel, a former congressman and state lawmaker who helped build the Republican Party in South Carolina and get money for the beautiful bridge that dominates the Charleston skyline and is named after him, has died. He was 95.

In a short statement, his family said that he had died on Monday. The statement did not give a cause. Ravenel worked for the government for 60 years. During that time, he was elected to the state Senate, the state House, and Congress.

He also ran for governor, and after he left the Senate late in life, he went back to work for the public as a member of the Charleston County School Board.

The $632 million bridge over the Cooper River that connects Charleston and Mount Pleasant is named after him as a thank-you for the years he spent in Washington trying to get money for an iconic bridge that would fit the charming city where he spent most of his life.

Ravenel’s ancestors fought for the Confederacy. During the heated debate over removing the Confederate flag from the Statehouse dome in 2000, he once called the NAACP the “National Association for Retarded People,” which caused people to call for him to resign.

Later, he voted to take the flag off the dome and put a similar one on the Statehouse grounds at the Confederate Soldier Monument. Ravenel defended his actions by saying he didn’t have a single racist bone in his body. His African American colleagues also said he was sometimes willing to help get their bills passed.

Ravenel told The Associated Press in an interview in 2004 that he was first elected to the House as a Democrat in 1952 when there were almost no Republicans in his state. “You just heard about Republicans,” he quipped. “Sherman was one.”

Ten years later, Ravenel joined the state’s new Republican Party. In 1964, when Barry Goldwater was running for president, he was a national convention delegate. Ravenel was chosen as a Republican for the state Senate in 1980.

“The Democratic Party was getting more and more liberal,” Ravenel recalled. “As it got more liberal, we were able to recruit more and more people to run.”

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Ravenel was elected to Congress in 1986 from the 1st District, which is along the coast. Eight years later, he left to run for governor, but David Beasley beat him in the GOP runoff. Beasley went on to become governor.

Two years later, Ravenel went back to the state Senate with a plan to make an infrastructure bank to pay for expensive highway projects. The bank was a big part of building the Charleston bridge, which had been talked about for decades but could not be paid for.

Ravenel was a businessman and private investor, but he loved his job in the Senate more than any other job he had. “You’re dealing with people with soft Southern voices, and everyone is very polite,” he recalled. “It’s small, and with 46 members, you can get something done.”

Ravenel had six kids, including a son named Thomas who was elected state treasurer in 2006 but quit the next year after being charged with drug crimes.

Later, the younger Ravenel pleaded guilty to one count of plotting to sell cocaine and was given 10 months in federal prison. He has spent the last few years as a star on the reality TV show “Southern Charm,” which has been on for five seasons and is about Charleston socialites.

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