We’re celebrating our 40th anniversary with monthly dives into our archives. This look back is from our August-September 1989 Best & Worst issue.
When Henry W. “Chuck” Richardson joined the historic black-majority Richmond City Council in 1977, he couldn’t have foreseen the derailment of his 18 and a half years of public service by undiagnosed Vietnam War-related post-traumatic stress disorder and heroin addiction.
His 5th District constituency supported him despite media lampooning and mentions in Richmond magazine’s Best & Worst reader survey as “Most Scandalous Richmonder” (1989), “Most Insincere Politician” (1990) and “Area Politician Whose Time Has Gone” (1996). Richardson is credited with bringing the Supercan to littered alleys, advocating for air conditioning in public housing and supporting the Arthur Ashe Jr. statue. He left office amid heroin distribution charges in September 1995 and served 22 months in jail on drug and contempt charges. After his October 1997 release, he took up the cause of restoring felons’ voting rights.
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Henry W. “Chuck” Richardson gives a press conference in 1989, flanked by the late defense attorney Michael Morchower (left) and trailblazing attorney and former circuit Judge James E. Sheffield, who died in 2013. (Photo courtesy Richmond Times-Dispatch Collection, The Valentine)
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Richardson today, with his dogs Quinn (left) and Chloe (Photo by Jay Paul)
Today, Richardson, 71, is a great-grandfather and has been clean and sober, he says, for 25 years. A Marine veteran with disability status, he’s getting in shape to run for office. The opportunity stems from current Councilman Parker Agelasto’s move from the 5th District, which he represents, to the 1st District — which Richardson contested in court.
“I couldn’t sit by and watch the law flouted, ignored, by people who apparently thought that [district residency] just doesn’t matter,” Richardson says. That way, he asserts, leads back to the pre-1970 days of diluted African American representation.
His memoir, “Councilman Chuck,” is due out soon, a reference to older constituents preferring not to use the young official’s conventional title. “So I became Councilman Chuck,” he says.
