Scholar Ronald W. Walters Led What Is Considered To Be The First Lunch-Counter Sit-In
By Matt Schudel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 12, 2010; C01
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 12, 2010; C01
Ronald W. Walters, one of the country's leading scholars of the
politics of race, who was a longtime professor at Howard University and
the University of Maryland, died Friday of cancer at Suburban Hospital
in Bethesda. He was 72.
Dr. Walters was both an academic and an activist, cementing his
credentials with his early involvement in the civil rights movement. In
1958, in his home town of Wichita, he led what many historians consider
the nation's first lunch-counter sit-in protest. Later, he became a
close adviser to Jesse L. Jackson as one of the principal architects of
Jackson's two failed presidential campaigns.
"Ron was one of the legendary forces in the civil rights movement of the last 50 years," Jackson said Saturday.
Dr. Walters also helped develop the intellectual framework of the
Congressional Black Caucus in the 1970s. Some of his political ideas,
such as comprehensive health care and a proposed two-state solution to
the Israeli-Palestinian problem, were viewed as radical. A
quarter-century later, they are part of the intellectual mainstream.
"Many of his ideas now make up the progressive wing of the country,"
Jackson said. "If it's morally right, it can't be politically wrong."
Two decades before Barack Obama was elected president, Dr. Walters
described the political steps an African American candidate would have
to take in his 1987 book "Black Presidential Politics in America: A
Strategic Approach."
In 2003, he predicted a resurgent white conservative movement in his
book "White Nationalism, Black Interests: Conservative Public Policy
and the Black Community." When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans
in 2005, Dr. Walters became a leading voice in highlighting the
inequality that tarnished the bright edges of the American dream.
"Katrina kicked open a very historical door," he said. "It showed
us, for example, that poverty's not gone in America and we're not just
talking about black poverty."
Beginning in the 1970s, Dr. Walters became known as one of the
country's foremost public intellectuals, with frequent appearances in
the media as a commentator on public affairs. He was interviewed by
Bill Moyers on PBS, commented on cable news shows and wrote opinion
columns for newspapers and magazines.
"As an academic, journalist and crusader, he was in the tradition of
W.E.B. DuBois," writer and civil rights leader Roger Wilkins said
Saturday. "He was a man who used his intellect and wisdom to make this
a fairer and culturally richer country than the one we were born into."
Early Days
Ronald William Walters was born July 20, 1938, in Wichita. His
father was a musician and had served in the military; his mother was a
civil rights investigator for the state.
In July 1958, when he was leader of the youth council of the local
NAACP, Dr. Walters and a cousin, Carol Parks, organized a sit-in
protest of the Dockum drugstore in Wichita. Day after day, young
African Americans sat at the drugstore's lunch counter, where they were
refused service. The protesters sat in silence for hours at a time,
enduring taunts from white customers.
Finally, after more than three weeks, the store owner relented, saying, "Serve them. I'm losing too much money."
The Wichita sit-in and a similar one in Oklahoma City occurred
almost two years before the more famous lunch-room sit-ins in
Greensboro, N.C., but received little publicity at the time. It was not
until 2006 that Dr. Walters received a belated medal from the NAACP for
his quiet but effective act of civil disobedience in Kansas.
"You gain your authenticity through the risks you take," Jackson
said Saturday. "He stood up. He marched. He was both scholar and
activist."
In 1963, Dr. Walters graduated from Fisk University in Nashville,
where two of his intellectual heroes, DuBois and historian John Hope
Franklin, had studied in earlier years. Dr. Walters also sang tenor in
Fisk's famed Jubilee Singers.
After being selected for a fellowship at the State Department, Dr.
Walters received a master's degree in African studies in 1966 and
doctorate in international studies in 1971, both from American
University.
He taught at Syracuse University in the late 1960s and became the
first chairman of chairman of Afro-American studies at Brandeis
University in Boston before joining the faculty at Howard University in
the early 1970s.
He wrote his first books at Howard, became chairman of the political
science department and was busy with many outside projects. He worked
as a top adviser to Rep. Charles Diggs (D-Mich.), the first chairman of
the Congressional Black Caucus. He participated in summit meetings of
black executives, political leaders and scholars and in 1977 was a
founder of the TransAfrica Forum, a group that led the fight against
South African apartheid and sought to improve conditions in Haiti.
During Jackson's 1984 presidential campaign, Dr. Walters was a
confidant of the candidate, as well as a street-level political
operative.
"He was on the ground with us, going through it with the great
unwashed, including me, to reconcile the tensions that existed between
elected officials," former Prince George's County Executive Walter K.
Curry said Saturday.
In 1996, Dr. Walters moved to the University of Maryland, where he
directed of the African American Leadership Institute and was a
distinguished scholar at the James MacGregor Burns Academy of
Leadership. His wife, Patricia Turner Walters, said Dr. Walters had
recently agreed to return to Howard University as a senior research
fellow and lecturer.
In addition to his wife, of Silver Spring, survivors include three
brothers, Duane Walters of Atlanta, Terrence Walters of Oklahoma City
and Kevin Walters of Bowie; and two sisters, Marcia Walters of Austin
and Sharon Walters of Atlanta.
Dr. Walters had recently edited a book about D.C. politics,
"Democratic Destiny and the District of Columbia" and was at work on a
book about Obama at the time of his death.
In an essay in January, Dr. Walters defended Obama's record in the face of criticism from the left and the right.
"I think that the pundits and the public should face up to one
fact," he wrote. "The mess that President Barack Obama inherited will
not be fixed in one year, or two or possibly even during his entire
term.
"The media works on a timeframe of instant results. . . . If George
Bush had been as criticized and interrogated as much as Obama, perhaps
the edifice of problems that now challenge the very viability of
America might have been stopped."
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!”
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe/2010/02/25/tha-artivist-presentswe-all-be-radio
More Dr. Ron Walters On W.E. A.L.L. B.E.:
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/search?q=dr.+ronald+walters
More Dr. Ron Walters On W.E. A.L.L. B.E.:
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/search?q=dr.+ronald+walters
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