When journalists across the country wanted to enrich their political news stories with a greater grasp of the evolving American political landscape, they always sought the opinions of Dr. Ronald Walters, an HBCU trained historian who became one of the nation’s most respected political scientists in the last half century.
As a teen in 1958, Walters helped lead “sit ins” protesting racially segregated lunch counters in his hometown of Wichita, Kansas, where he was leader of his hometown NAACP Youth Council. As an adult in 1963, he graduated from Fisk University, where he was inspired by former Fisk professors W.E.B. DuBois and John Hope Franklin. He went on to earn a Master’s and a Ph.D. from American University. He then began carving a niche that combined his activist and academic experiences into a career that saw him emerge as a leading thinker of his generation on American politics and how Black voters figured into it.
Blacks in politics became a very important topic nationally after passage by Congress in the late 1960s of the Voting Rights Act. The federal law empowered millions of Blacks and Latinos, especially in the South and West, to vote for the first time ever. Walters, always accessible and knowledgeable on his topic, was one of the few people of color in academia who did not shy away from reporters seeking his thoughts.
Walters, who retired last year from his post at the University of Maryland in College Park where he was professor of government and politics and director of the school’s African American Leadership Institute for more than a decade, died late Friday of cancer. He was 72.
“He was a major figure, very strong idealist who worked tirelessly for the ideals he believed in,” says Dr. David Bositis, senior researcher at the Washington-based Joint Center on Political and Economic Studies, a leading think tank that focuses on public policy issues and how they relate to Black Americans.
Bositis, who had known Walters more than 20 years, says he and Walters often had disagreements on issues, “but not about the ends. He was always looking at the way things should be,” Bositis says admiringly. “I was always looking at things as they are. There aren’t that many idealists around.”
Veteran journalist Sam Fulwood, who came to Washington in 1987 to cover politics for The Los Angeles Times, characterized Walters as one of the most thoughtful academic political analysts of his time. “It was essential,” says Fulwood. “He wasn’t a quote machine. He didn’t have clever, witty and catchy things to say. He gave us something of substance. Nobody took the subject he was dealing with that seriously,” Fulwood says, referring to the army of political analysts in Washington who are skilled at offering reporters quick, so-called “sound bite” quotes.
