WASHINGTON (AP)- Ron Walters, a leading expert on race and politics who died this month at age 72, is being remembered for his early activism in the civil rights movement.
Nearly two years before the sit-ins protesting segregation at a Greensboro, N.C., lunch counter, Walters was organizing sit-ins at a drugstore in his home town of Wichita, Kan. The protests ended when the store owner began serving black diners.
At a memorial service Sunday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson called Walters a "philosopher-king.'' More than 700 people gathered at Howard University to remember Walters, who died of cancer Sept. 10.
Walters joined the Howard faculty in the early 1970s. In 1996, he moved to the University of Maryland.
Jackson is scheduled to deliver the eulogy at Walters' funeral Monday at Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington.
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