Yvonne Delores Bond Miller (4 July 1934–3 July 2012), member of the House of Delegates and the Senate of Virginia, was born in Edenton, North Carolina, and was the daughter of John Thomas Bond and Pency Cola Bond. When she was a child, her family moved to Norfolk, where her father worked as a painter in the local shipyards. After graduating from Booker T. Washington High School, she attended the Norfolk division of Virginia State College (later Norfolk State University) for two years before transferring to Virginia State College (later Virginia State University), where she graduated in 1956 with a bachelor's degree in elementary education. She married Wilbert Roy Miller Jr., a staff sergeant in the United States Air Force, on 28 December 1957. They did not have any children before they divorced on 10 January 1966.
Yvonne B. Miller began her career in the segregated public schools in Norfolk, where she taught for more than a decade. She had a passion for teaching, developed as she helped her mother in rearing her twelve younger siblings. In 1962 she received her master's degree at Teachers College, Columbia University's Summer Program, and in 1968 became a professor of early childhood education at Norfolk State University. She received a doctorate in higher education in 1973 from the University of Pittsburgh, and later served as head of Norfolk State's Department of Early Childhood/Elementary Education.
In 1983, Miller was approached by Concerned Citizens, a local community advocacy group, to vie for an open seat representing Norfolk in the House of Delegates. A Democrat, she ran unopposed in the general election in November and became the first African American woman to win a seat in Virginia's General Assembly. During her first term she focused on education, women's rights, and sex equity while serving on the Committees on Education, on Health, Welfare, and Institutions, and on the Militia and Police. She successfully sponsored a bill mandating that newly designated polling places be accessible to those with physical disabilities. She ran unopposed again in 1985 and focused on issues related to children, childcare licensing and facility standards, senior citizens, and suicide prevention.
With the support of the Rainbow Coalition backed wing of the Democratic Party in Norfolk, Miller ran for the Senate of Virginia in 1987 to represent the Fifth Senatorial District, comprising parts of the cities of Chesapeake and Norfolk, and later parts of Virginia Beach. She won in a tightly fought campaign, receiving 52.1 percent of the votes over Republican and Independent challengers. The first African American woman to serve in the state senate, Miller was appointed to the Committees on Commerce and Labor, on Local Government, and on Rehabilitation and Social Services.
Reelected consecutively until her death, Miller continued to focus on improving laws concerning education and childcare and increasing opportunities for underrepresented communities. She sponsored hundreds of resolutions honoring constituent accomplishments and recognizing outstanding citizens for contributions to their communities. In 1996, Miller became the first woman to chair a General Assembly committee when she was appointed to lead the Senate's Committee on Rehabilitation and Social Services. After thirteen years of assembly service she became the senior female member of the Legislative Black Caucus in 1997. Reflecting her status and the Democratic majority in the state senate, Miller chaired the Committee on Transportation during the 2008 session and sat on the important Finance Committee, while also being a member of the Committees on Rehabilitation and Social Services (of which she was ranking), on Commerce and Labor, and on Rules.
An advocate for voting rights restoration, Miller fought at almost each legislative session for a constitutional amendment that would restore voting rights to felons who had completed their sentences, but she was not successful. She supported the Nottoway Tribe's request to be designated a Virginia State Recognized Tribe, which it gained in 2010. An adamant opponent of a voter identification bill that would require Virginians to cast provisional ballots if they did not present their identification at the polls, Miller harkened back to earlier Jim Crow laws when she described its passage in 2012 as "another day of shame for Virginia."
Active in the Virginia Democratic Party, Miller was elected first vice chair in 1993 without opposition and served until she resigned in November 1997. That year she was elected chair of the Human Services and Public Safety Committee of the Southern Legislative Conference (later the Council of State Governments Southern Office), a nonpartisan organization that encouraged cooperation among government leaders in southern states. A longtime member of the Church of God in Christ, Miller dedicated her time to organizations that focused on uplifting the Black community, advocating for women's rights, improving education for youth, and providing disadvantaged individuals with better opportunities. She worked to advance women's participation in politics with such groups as the Black Women's Political Network and the Virginia Statewide Women's Conference. She was also a board member for the Virginia Association for Early Childhood Education and the National Alliance of Black School Educators.
After thirty-one years, Miller retired from Norfolk State University in 1999. She received numerous accolades for her work in the assembly and community, including being named one of Virginia Power's (later Dominion Energy) Strong Men and Women in Leadership honorees in 1995 and one of the Library of Virginia's African American Trailblazers in 2012. In 2011, when Miller was then the longest-serving woman in the state senate, she was diagnosed with stomach cancer that caused her to miss parts of her term. Yvonne Delores Bond Miller died at her home on 3 July 2012 and was buried in Norfolk's Forest Lawn Cemetery. Norfolk State's Intelligence Community Center for Academic Excellence named its annual award for her to honor a student who exemplified her qualities of leadership and service to others, and the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice named a high school for Miller. In 2024 the House of Delegates and Senate of Virginia commemorated the fortieth anniversary of Miller's taking office in the General Assembly with a joint resolution highlighting her long service to the state and its people.
Sources Consulted:
Feature articles and political career covered in the Norfolk Journal and Guide, including 1 May 1991, 8 Feb., 1 Nov. 1995, 24 Jan. 1996, 12 Feb., 13 Aug. 1997, 6 Oct., 22 Dec. 1999, 15 Nov. 2007; Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 21 Jan. 1996, 4 Feb. 2002; Richmond Times-Dispatch, 12 Jan. 1984 (portrait), 8 Jan. 2008, 28 Feb. 2012 (quotation); Flora Crater, et. al., The Almanac of Virginia Politics (1984–2010); Elizabeth R. Herbener and Jon Kukla, eds., The General Assembly of Virginia, 11 January 1978–27 April 1989: A Register of Members (1990), 62 (portrait), 106; Marriage License, Norfolk City, Bureau of Vital Statistics (BVS), Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Health; obituaries and tributes in Richmond Times-Dispatch, 3, 4, 9 July 2012, Washington Post, 3, 5 July 2012, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, 4, 6 July 2012, and Richmond Free Press, 5–7 July 2012.
1994 Senate of Virginia legislative photograph courtesy Library of Virginia, Visual Studies Collection.
Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Sara Ali.
How to cite this page:
Sara Ali, "Yvonne Delores Bond Miller (1934–2012)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2024 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Miller_Yvonne_Bond, accessed [today's date]).
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