Ernest “Fritz” Hollings, a silver-haired Democrat who helped shepherd South Carolina through desegregation as governor and served six terms in the US Senate, has died. He was 97. A family spokesman said Hollings died early on Saturday.

Hollings’s career included an unsuccessful bid for the presidential nomination in 1984. He retired in 2005, one of the last of the larger-than-life Democrats who once dominated southern politics. He had served for 38 years and two months, making him the eighth longest-serving senator in history.

Hollings remained the junior senator from South Carolina for most of his term. The senior senator was Strom Thurmond, elected in 1954. He retired in January 2003 at 100, the longest-serving senator in history.

In his final Senate speech, Hollings lamented that lawmakers had come to spend much of their time raising money, which he called “the main culprit, the cancer on the body politic”.

“We don’t have time for each other,” he said, “we don’t have time for constituents except for the givers … We’re in real, real trouble.”

Ernest Frederick Hollings was born in Charleston, South Carolina on 1 January 1922. His father was a paper dealer but the family business went bust in the Depression. Hollings graduated from the Citadel, the state’s military college, in 1942. He entered the army and was decorated for his service during the second world war.

He earned a law degree from the University of South Carolina in 1947. The next year, he was elected to the state House, at age 26. He was elected lieutenant governor six years later and governor in 1958, at 36. His one defeat came in 1962 when he lost a primary to Senator Olin Johnston. After Johnston died, Hollings won a special election and went to the Senate at 44, winning the first of six terms two years later.

Hollings was a sharp-tongued orator whose rhetorical flourishes in the deep accent of his home state enlivened many a Washington debate, but his influence never reached the levels he hoped. He sometimes blamed that failure on his background, rising as he did in the south in the 1950s, as the region bubbled with anger over segregation.

South Carolina largely avoided the racial violence that afflicted some other deep south states but Hollings campaigned against desegregation when running for governor in 1958. He then built a national reputation as a moderate when, in his farewell address as governor, he pleaded with the legislature to accept integration of public schools and the admission of the first black student to Clemson University.

“This general assembly must make clear South Carolina’s choice, a government of laws rather than a government of men,” he said. Clemson was peacefully integrated.

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In his 2008 autobiography, Making Government Work, Hollings wrote that in the 1950s “no issue dominated South Carolina more than race” and that he worked for a balanced approach.

“I was ‘Mister-In-Between’. The governor had to appear to be in charge; yet the realities were not on his side,” he wrote. “I returned to my basic precept … the safety of the people is the supreme law. I was determined to keep the peace and avoid bloodshed.”

In the Senate, Hollings chaired the commerce, science and transportation committee and held seats on appropriations and budget. He began his run for the presidency in April 1983 but dropped out after dismal showings in Iowa and New Hampshire.

He built a record as a hawk and lobbied hard for military dollars for South Carolina. He originally supported American involvement in Vietnam but his views changed as it became clear there would be no victory. He made three trips to the war zone and said he learned a lesson.

“It’s a mistake to try to build and destroy a nation at the same time,” he wrote in his autobiography, warning America was “repeating the same wrongheaded strategy in Iraq”. In 1991, Hollings opposed authorizing President George Bush to use force against Saddam Hussein.

In 1969 he drew attention when he exposed hunger in his own state by helping lay the groundwork for the Women, Infants and Children feeding program. A year later, he published his first book, The Case Against Hunger. He also helped create the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and write the National Coastal Zone Management Act.

As he prepared to leave office, he told the AP: “People ask you your legacy or your most embarrassing moment. I never, ever lived that way … I’m not trying to get remembered.”