Ernest Frederick "Fritz" Hollings (January 1, 1922April 6, 2019) was an American politician from the U.S. state of South Carolina. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives representing Charleston County, South Carolina from 1949 to 1954, the 77th lieutenant governor of South Carolina from 1955 to 1959, the 106th governor of South Carolina from 1959 to 1963, and a member of the United States Senate from 1966 to 2005. He served alongside Democrat-turned-Republican U.S. Senate member Strom Thurmond for 36 years, making them the longest-serving duo in U.S. Senate history. At the time of his death, he was the oldest living former U.S. senator and the second-oldest living former American governor. As of 2026, he is the last Democrat to hold or win a U.S. Senate seat in South Carolina.
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Hollings graduated from The Citadel in 1942 and joined a law practice in Charleston after attending the Joseph F. Rice School of Law. During World War II, he served as an artillery officer in campaigns in North Africa and Europe. After the war, Hollings successively won election to the South Carolina House of Representatives, as lieutenant governor, and as governor. He sought election to the Senate in 1962 but was defeated by incumbent U.S. Senate member Olin D. Johnston.
Johnston died in 1965, and the following year Hollings won a special election to serve the remainder of Johnston's term. Hollings remained popular and continually won re-election, becoming one of the longest-serving members of the United States Senate in U.S. history. Hollings sought the Democratic nomination in the 1984 presidential election but dropped out of the race after the New Hampshire presidential primary. He declined to seek re-election in 2004 and was succeeded by Republican Jim DeMint.
Early life
Hollings was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the son of Wilhelmine Dorothea Meyer (1888–1982) and Adolph Gevert Hollings, Sr. (1882–1940). He was of German descent. Hollings was raised at 338 President St. in the Hampton Park Terrace neighborhood from age 10 until he enrolled in college.
Education and personal life
Hollings graduated from The Citadel in 1942, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree. He achieved a Bachelor of Laws in 1947 after one year and nine months at the University of South Carolina, and joined a law practice in Charleston. Hollings was a member of the Pi Kappa Phi fraternity. He was a member of the German Friendly Society of Charleston from 1976 to 1991.
Hollings was then married to Rita Liddy "Peatsy" Hollings from August 21, 1971, until her death in October 2012."Hollings, Ernest Frederick "'Fritz'" South Carolina Encyclopedia retrieved April 6, 2019 He had four children (Michael, Helen, Patricia Salley, and Ernest III) with his first wife, Martha Patricia Salley Hollings, who he first married on March 30, 1946. He was a Lutheran. In addition, Fritz and Patricia had two sons who died.
Hollings served as an officer in the United States Army's 353rd and 457th Artillery units from 1942 to 1945, during World War II, and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service in direct support of combat operations from December 13, 1944, to May 1, 1945, in France and Germany. He received the European–African–Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with five Bronze Service Stars for participation in the Tunisia, Southern France, Rome-Arno, and Central Europe Campaigns.
Political career
Hollings served three terms in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 1949 to 1954. In 1950, following the notorious lynching of Willie Earle, Hollings authored a law that mandated the death penalty for lynching. No lynchings occurred in South Carolina after that law was enacted. After only one term, Hollings's colleagues elected him Speaker Pro Tempore in 1951 and 1953. He was subsequently elected Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina in 1954, and Governor of South Carolina in 1958 at the age of 36.
Governor of South Carolina (1959-1963)
As governor of South Carolina from January 20, 1959, to January 15, 1963, Hollings worked to improve the state's educational system, helping to bring more industry and employment opportunities to the state. His term in office saw the establishment of the state's technical education system and its educational television network. He also called for and achieved significant increases in teachers' salaries, bringing them closer to the regional average. At the 1961 Governor's Conference on Business, Industry, Education and Agriculture in Columbia, South Carolina, he declared, "Today, in our complex society, education is the cornerstone upon which economic development must be builtand prosperity assured."
During Hollings's term as governor, the Confederate battle flag was flown above the South Carolina State House underneath the U.S. and state flags. The battle flag was placed over the dome in 1962 by a concurrent resolution of the state legislature during the commemoration of the Civil War centennial."Journal of the House of Representatives of the Second Session of the 94th General Assembly of the State of South Carolina". Confederate Flag Vertical File, South Carolina Political Collections, University of South Carolina. The resolution failed to designate a time for its removal. In 2000 the state legislature voted to move the flag from above the state house to a Confederate soldiers' monument in front of the building, where it remained until 2015, when a bill was passed into law following the Charleston church shooting, racially motivated, which directed its removal.
Hollings did little to either support or oppose the civil rights movement as governor, and instead took pride in the lack of civil rights violence that occurred in the state. In his last address to the General Assembly on January 9, 1963, ahead of the peaceful admission to Clemson University of its first African American student, Harvey Gantt, Hollings declared: "As we meet, South Carolina is running out of courts... this General Assembly must make clear South Carolina's choice, a government of laws rather than a government of men... This should be done with dignity. It should be done with law and order."Address by Governor Ernest F. Hollings to the General Assembly of South Carolina, January 9, 1963, p. 8-9, , part of the University of South Carolina's Digital Collection, "Fritz Hollings: In His Own Words".
Hollings oversaw the last executions in South Carolina before Furman v. Georgia, a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which temporarily banned capital punishment. During his term, eight inmates were put to death by electric chair. The last was rapist Douglas Thorne, on April 20, 1962.
He sought the Democratic nomination for a seat in the United States Senate in 1962 but lost to incumbent Olin D. Johnston.
According to one study, Hollings was the first of a series of “moderately liberal” Democratic governors who would lead South Carolina for the next 16 years.The Life and Death of the Solid South A Political History By Dewey W. Grantham, 2021
United States Senator (1966-2005) Early Senate career
Johnston died on April 18, 1965. Hollings' successor as governor, Donald S. Russell, resigned in order to accept appointment to the Senate seat. In the summer of 1966, Hollings defeated Russell in the Democratic primary for the remaining two years of the term. He then narrowly won the special election on November 8, 1966, defeating Democrat-turned-Republican Marshall Parker by 11,758 votes, and was sworn in shortly thereafter. He gained seniority on other newly elected U.S. senators who would have to wait until January 1967 to take the oath of office. In 1967, he was one of eleven senators who voted against the nomination of Thurgood Marshall to become the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1968, Hollings won his first full Senate term, again defeating Parker this time by 155,280 votes.
For over 36 years (from November 9, 1966 to January 3, 2003), he served alongside Democratic-turned-Republican Strom Thurmond, making them the longest-serving state delegation duo in history of the United States Senate to date. Thurmond and Hollings generally had a good relationship despite their sometimes sharp philosophical differences, and frequently collaborated on legislation and projects for South Carolina. Hollings was also the thirteenth-longest-serving member of the United States Senate.
In 1970, Hollings authored The Case Against Hunger: A Demand for a National Policy, acknowledging the Reverend I. DeQuincey Newman and Sister Mary Anthony for opening his eyes to the despair caused by hunger and helping him realize that he must do something about it. Hollings made headlines the year before when he toured poverty-stricken areas of South Carolina, often referred to as his "Hunger Tours". He was accused of drawing unwanted attention to South Carolina while other states, both northern and southern, also faced extreme poverty. Hollings knew South Carolina was not alone in its struggle and thought that if any politician was going to investigate hunger in South Carolina, it was going to at least be a South Carolinian. After a tour of an East Charleston slum, he said, "I don't want Romney and Kennedy coming here to look at my slums. As a matter of fact when I get caught up with my work, I think I may go look at the slums of Boston."Robertson, Glenn (January 11, 1968). "Hollings 'Angered' by Tour of Slums". Charleston, S.C.: Evening Post. For his efforts, Hollings was also accused of "scheming for the Negro vote". Hollings, who had seen plenty of white hunger and poverty and slums on his tours, responded, "You just don't make political points on hunger. The poor aren't registered to vote and they won't vote."Pyatt, "The Beginning of a Renaissance in Dixie?". In February 1969, however, Hollings testified as to what he had seen on his fact-finding tours in front of the United States Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs. Charleston's News and Courier (now The Post and Courier) reported that "Senators, members of the press corps and visitors packed in the hearing room watched and listened in disbelief as Hollings detailed dozens of tragically poignant scenes of human suffering in his state." Hollings recommended to the committee that free food stamps from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program be distributed to the most needy, and just over a day later, U.S. Senate member George McGovern from South Dakota announced that free food stamps would be distributed in South Carolina as part of a national pilot program for feeding the hungry.
Hollings and his first wife separated in 1970 and divorced in 1971. Their children lived with their mother, and Hollings never discussed the reason for the divorce. Later that year, he married Rita Liddy "Peatsy" Hollings (born 1935), who was 13 years his junior. She had joined his administrative staff in 1967. It was her first and his second marriage. They were married 41 years until her death in 2012.
In the 1970s, Hollings joined with fellow U.S. Senate members Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts and Henry M. Jackson from Washington in a press conference to oppose President of the United States Gerald Ford's request that Congress end Richard Nixon's price controls on domestic oil, which had helped to cause the gasoline lines during the 1973 oil crisis. Hollings said he believed ending the price controls (as was eventually done in 1981) would be a "catastrophe" that would cause "economic chaos".
In February 1970, during a session of debate on federal aid to school districts serving children living in public housing units, Hollings asked U.S. Senate member Jacob Javits from New York if he would support the anti-busing amendment given that it was based on New York law.