Skip to main content

Norton Offers Condolences on the Passing of Her Friend Dr. Ronald Walters (09/12/2010)

September 13, 2010

Norton Offers Condolences on the Passing of Her Friend Dr. Ronald Walters

September 12, 2010

WASHINGTON, DC - Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) issued the following statement on the passing of Dr. Ronald Walters:

"I offer my sincere condolences to the family of my good friend, Dr. Ronald Walters. Ron Walters was a public intellectual activist who brilliantly articulated his world view and ardent civil rights activism while maintaining the respect and admiration of scholars for the cogency of his analysis. Just last month, Dr. Walters served as the lead panelist for a Roundtable of my Black Men and Boys Commission entitled, Black Men and Employment: What Black Men Need to Do in the Toughest Job Market In History, where Ron, with great clarity, laid the predicate for the Roundtable by framing the issues in society and within the Black community that affect the chronic unemployment rates of African American men. I was most grateful that Ron came, with his wife Patricia, because even then he was not feeling his best. At the invitation, Dr. Walters, I wrote the introduction for his latest book, which he co-edited, Democratic Destiny and the District of Columbia. I was to open to a forum on the book to be held in the coming weeks. I will certainly miss Ron, and so will the general public who often looked to Dr. Ronald Walters to explain complex societal patterns and racial issues of every variety. Ron Walters leaves a unique legacy that will always inspire intellectuals and activists alike."