An Appreciation: Political Scientist Ronald Walters, 1938 – 2010: 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.
