Ronald Walters, Beloved Professor Dies

Ronald Walters, distinguished professor, author and prominent figure of the civil rights movement died Friday, Sept. 12 of cancer. He was 72, according to an obituary published in the Washington Post.

Dr. Walters began teaching for the University of Maryland's Department of Government and Politics in 1996 and led the campus' African American Leadership Institute, according to a memorial posted on Maryland's department of Social and Behavioral Sciences Web page, www.bsos.umd.edu. He taught courses devoted to the politics of race relations in the U.S., a subject he knew a lot about from his past.

At just 20 years old, Dr. Walters, then president of the local youth chapter of Wichita's N.A.A.C.P., and his cousin Carol Parks organized one of the first lunch-counter sit-ins in America, according to an obituary published in the New York Times. After three weeks of sitting at the counter of Dockum's Drug Store and refused service, the store owner relented and served Dr. Walters and his companions, according to the Washington Post. 

The Dockum sit-in set off a string of national lunch-counter sit-ins, eventually leading to the famous sit-in at Woolworth's in North Carolina two years later, an act displayed in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

Dr. Walters continued to be active in political and social news, publishing 13 books and became professor emeritus at UMD in 2009, according to the BSOS website and The New York Times.

Paul S. Herrnson, Director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship, and professor at UMD remembers Dr. Walters as, "a fine scholar, and activist, and a good citizen. He was committed to teaching, researching and promoting social change. Despite the heavy demands made on him by politicians and the media, he managed to find time to participate in campus events."

Current Maryland students also remember him fondly, even if they never met him. Ida Daniel, a sophomore government and politics major hadn't heard of Dr. Walters before she had to read, "White Nationalism," an article by Dr. Walters, for her African-American public policy class. "As far as being a government and politics major, I'm more into the international relations aspect of it, listening to my professor talk about him [Dr. Walters] made me really interested in the policy side of things, about getting the word out about minorities and actually getting things done," said Daniel. 

Dr. Walters is survived by his wife, Patricia Turner Walters, of Silver Spring, three brothers and two sisters, according to the Washington Post.

"He was an excellent colleague. I will miss him," said Dr. Herrnson.