Count Me Among The Many Touched And Inspired By Dr. Ron Walters
Dr. Jason Johnson
9/17/2010
On Friday Sept. 10, Dr. Ron Walters, professor of Political Science at the
University of Maryland, passed away quietly after a long battle with
cancer. While perhaps not nearly as famous to the mainstream as Cornell
West, Skip Gates or Michael Eric Dyson, Ron Walters was for many
African-American academics, politicians and me personally an inspiration
and a shining example of the responsibilities one carries along with
their education.
Dr. Walters was born in 1938 and attended Fisk
University and received his MA and PhD from American University in 1971.
He was without a doubt one of the most prolific and respected writers
on race in the United States, with over 100 publications to his name and
more awards than even he cared to count. After working at Howard
University for over 25 years, he moved 45 minutes up the beltway to run
the African American leadership Institute at the University of Maryland
before retiring in part due to his cancer battle.
Dr.
Walters was a regular on political commentary shows in the ’80’s and
’90’s. He helped create the groundwork for the Congressional Black
Caucus and is credited with starting one of the first sit-in protests in
the United States in Witchita, Kans. But none of those reasons are why I
am writing about Ron Walters today. My reasons are more much simple and
less well known, but I think epitomize the impact he had on so many
people in his life.
In the summer of 1996, I had pretty much
decided that I wanted to run political campaigns as a career. As an
undergraduate at the University of Virginia it’s hard not to catch the
political bug. And with mentors such as Larry Sabato teaching that
“Politics is a Good Thing” and appearing on television every other week,
I saw a great career in consulting and punditry ahead of me.
Of
course, I never really knew if that work alone would really be
satisfying, if just working on campaigns along was enough to have a life
that was personally as well as financially fulfilling. That changed
when I met Dr. Walters.
That summer I was in the Ralphe Bunche
Institute, a program run by the American Political Science Association
to encourage minority students to pursue PhD’s especially in the social
sciences. I was enjoying my summer but was pretty much unconvinced. At
the time academics came off like distant eggheads to me, all theory and
no practical knowledge. Walters ended up being one of our speakers and
dinner guests at the Bunche Institute and my entire perspective on what
you could do with a PhD, and the impact you could have on practical
politics was changed.
Probably the most significant public
achievement that Dr. Walters had in his career in most people’s minds
was being the campaign manager for Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and 1988
Democratic nomination campaigns. He was in the thick of both of these
races, strategizing, organizing and theorizing ways to make the
impossible possible. While no slight to Shirley Chisolm, Jackson ran the
first “impossible to ignore” campaign by an African American running
for president. He made the possibility of a black president very real to
all Americans and people across the globe, and he was able to do that
in no small part due to Ron Walters.
I was captivated. For the
first time in my life I met a black man who was doing exactly what I
wanted to do when I was older; make a way in the academic world and make
a difference in real politics. At dinner, Dr. Walters was funny,
graceful and spent a lot more time answering questions about the
campaign to this little group of college kids than he needed to. I was
inspired by not only his commitment to his craft, but to his sense of
obligation to inspire and encourage others.
In the harsh years
of PhD hazing that followed, my mind would occasionally wander back to
Dr. Walters, and I would remember that if he could get a PhD in 1971
there was no way I was going to back down from any challenges I was
facing almost 40 years later.
This week at the Congressional
Black Caucus Conference I’m sure there will be a panel of people
discussing in detail the great impact and value of Ron Walter’s life.
While my story may not be as profound as some of those men and women on
stage, I will clap as loud as anyone else. In celebration of a life not
measured in sound bites or best-sellers but in the thousands of lives he
touched and inspired.
(Dr.
Jason Johnson is an associate professor of political science and
communications at Hiram College in Ohio, where he teaches courses in
campaigns and elections, pop culture, and the politics of sports.
He can be reached at johnsonja@hiram.edu.)
More Jason Johnson On W.E. A.L.L. B.E.:
Hear Dr. Ronald Walters On W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio:
Topic: 2010 State Of The Black Union
“It Ain’t About Tavis, It’s About Us, & It's About Time!”
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