Urban League Remembers Activist Ron Walters
WASHINGTON - The following was contributed by Marc H. Morial, President and CEO, National Urban League:
"If it's morally right, it can't be politically wrong."
In an era in which political commentary is so often characterized by shallow sound bites and shrill hyperbole, Dr. Ronald Walters' scholarly insights helped shape nearly every advancement of black political empowerment of the last century. In the mold of fellow Fisk University graduates, W.E.B. Dubois and John Hope Franklin, Walters, who lost his battle against cancer on September 10th at the age of 72, was one of the 20th century's most important and influential scholar activists. A household name in black political circles, he combined his exceptional academic prowess with an unwavering commitment to civil rights and social justice. In the process, he, more than any analyst of his time, helped us understand the nexus of race, politics and policy.
Until his retirement last year, Walters was director of the African American Leadership Institute at the University of Maryland. He had previously taught at Georgetown, Syracuse and Princeton Universities and chaired the African American Studies Department at Brandeis and the Political Science Department at Howard University. In 1984 and 1988 he served as a principal architect of Rev. Jesse Jackson's two presidential campaigns. Jackson called Walters "One of the legendary forces in the civil rights movement of the last 50 years," and added, "Many of his ideas now make up the progressive wing of the country."
Several of those ideas - comprehensive health care reform and a two-state solution for the Middle East crisis - were championed by Walters long before they gained wide spread mainstream acceptance. And in 1988, when Barack Obama was still a student at Harvard Law School, Walters' book, "Black Presidential Politics in America," won the Bunche award for its superb analysis of what it would take to elect America's first Black President.
Dr. Walters earned his B.A. in History from Fisk in 1963. In 1966 he earned his Master's in African Studies, and in 1971 his PhD in International studies, both from American University. Walters' quiet demeanor belied a passionate and life-long commitment to civil rights. His activist spirit was evident as early as 1958, when as the 20-year-old president of the NAACP youth council in his hometown of Wichita, Kansas, he led a sit-in at Dockum Drug Store, which led to the desegregation of the drugstore chain. This act of civil disobedience occurred more than 18 months before the more highly publicized Greensboro sit-ins of February 1960.
A former advisor to Congressmen Charles Diggs, William Gray and others, Walters helped establish the intellectual framework for the Congressional Black Caucus. CBC Chairwoman, Barbara Lee called him a "scholarly giant and … one of America's most insightful analysts of the political landscape." And former National Urban League President, Vernon E. Jordan described him as "… an indispensable part of the brain trust of the movement."
The National Urban League joins the nation in mourning the passing of Dr. Ronald W. Walters. The civil rights community and all Americans have lost a brilliant, principled and pre-eminent scholar activist.
