The Wichita NAACP Blog: The Last Sermon of Pastor Benjamin Hooks

Profile in Courage: Dr. Ronald W Walters

As the President of the Wichita NAACP Youth Council in July of 1958, Dr. Walters led the group as they conducted the first successful student-led sit-in of the Civil Rights movement. Sit-Ins were not an approved tactic of the NAACP in 1958 so when the Branch and Youth council asked for the support of the National Office, they were turned down. It required an extraordinary amount of courage for Ron as the Youth President and Chester I Lewis, the branch President, to press forward over the objections of the National Office. When the sit-in ended in August of that same year, the Dockum drug store on the corner of Broadway and Douglass in Wichita Kansas was integrated - along with the entire Rexall Drug store chain and all its subsidiaries. Following the success of the Dockum Sit-In, the Oklahoma City Branch Youth Council conducted a sit-in that August. From there, the tactic spread throughout the Midwest. In 1960, a group of young men and women from SNCC conducted a sit-in in Greensboro North Carolina which many mistakenly believe to have been the first... Dr. Walters went on to become known throughout the world for his knowledge of African American politics and leadership. He headed the African American Leadership Institute and Scholar Practitioner Program of the University of Maryland, served as Distinguished Leadership Scholar at the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership, and retired as Professor Emeritus of the University of Maryland College Park. Dr. Walters was a dear friend, a supporter, and a mentor, and he will be sorely missed... July 1938 - September 2010