In this March 25, 2015, file photo, Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock, speaks at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark. Walker, an Arkansas lawmaker and civil rights attorney who represented black students in a long-running court fight over the desegregation of Little Rock area schools, died Monday. He was 82. - Photo by The Associated Press
John Walker, whose childhood education in segregated schools informed his half-century legal crusade for equality as Arkansas' premier civil-rights lawyer, died Monday morning at his home. He was 82.
Aside from representing black families in the 36-year-old Pulaski County school desegregation federal lawsuit, the Hope native also fought discrimination in the workplace, housing, elections, policing, the judiciary and other school districts, his colleagues said.
Arkansas Employment Law Faq
People are benefiting from [Walker's] work who don't even know they're benefiting from his work, said juvenile court Judge Wiley Branton Jr., son of the late civil-rights icon Wiley Branton.
John was a fearless civil-rights advocate, the younger Branton said. He was a tireless warrior for equal justice under the law. He was one of a handful of attorneys who was responsible for improving employment and economic opportunities for black people across the state for more than 50 years.
Armed with landmark federal civil-rights laws and backed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's legal defense fund, Walker since the 1960s used the courts to fight inequality throughout the social landscape.
Little Rock Employment Lawyer
Walker, who founded the first racially integrated law firm in Arkansas, inspired other lawyers to tackle civil rights and recruited a diverse roster of talented litigators to join him.
He hopped around the state, suing companies and institutions as varied as Walmart, First National Bank of Little Rock, the Arkansas State Hospital and the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville -- often, though not always, winning in both state and federal courtrooms and at the appellate level.
Walker won settlements for his clients that included cash as well as pledges from their employers to better recruit and hire people of color.
Find An African American Attorney
He tried many, many cases in the employment discrimination field when discrimination against blacks in employment was much more of a problem than it is today, federal Magistrate Judge Beth Deere said. I'm not saying it's all been cured, but back in the '70s and '80s, he took on the big companies, big banks, big industry in Arkansas and largely prevailed.
You have to recognize someone who will go against the grain and fight for the underdogs, said Deere, who first worked with Walker on the desegregation case while she clerked for U.S. District Judge Henry Woods. He would take on these individual cases, and he certainly had his detractors, and he and I didn't always get along, but I always admired him.
Contemporaries remembered Walker as a trial whiz, expert orator and creative thinker who questioned witnesses without a script, listening attentively to answers he could deconstruct. He'd cold-call workers at companies he planned to sue, taking notes while peers watched the gambit with awe, according to two attorneys who worked with him.
Best Civil Rights Lawyers In America
He was the type of guy that when he went out for a case, he went all the way, said Richard Mays, who left behind a young career as a full-time deputy prosecutor to join Walker's firm in 1971. He was creative in [finding] ways to prevail. And ... he could disagree without being disagreeable.
Publicly, Walker is best known for his work in education. He held a master's degree in education from New York University, spent decades litigating the Pulaski County desegregation case and focused primarily on educational issues after winning election to the state House of Representatives in 2010.
In 1968, Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller nominated Walker to be the first black member of the state Board of Education. The Arkansas Senate rejected the appointment, largely because of his efforts to end segregation, Mays said.
Custom Search Page
High Profile article. You know what the role of an agitator is in a washing machine -- you can't get the clothes clean without it. I don't like that role. I'd rather be the motor. Or I'd rather be a person who could effectuate change without necessarily impacting upon people.
Several observers said Walker, who began practicing law in 1965, is on the short list of Arkansas' most successful civil-rights attorneys, if not at the very top. Those observers include his former law partner-turned-occasional adversary, Phil Kaplan.
If you look at span of an entire career, I don't think that you can put anybody else in the same rank, Kaplan said. I think that's fair to say.
Arkansas Criminal Lawyers
Walker was primed to be among the first class of black students at the University of Texas in Austin before officials reneged on his admission on registration day, he told the newspaper in 2000.
Walker grew up in segregated schools in Arkansas and in Houston, where his family moved after his sophomore year at Henry C. Yerger High in Hope. After being denied by the Texas flagship university, he spurned enrolling at the all-black Howard University in Washington, D.C., and sued for admission to the University of Texas.
I also knew that a degree from the University of Texas meant a lot, Walker said in the High Profile article. A school is more than buildings -- it is a legion of relationships.
Racial Discrimination Attorneys In Harrisburg, Pa
Walker lost the lawsuit. His savings were depleted, so he moved in with an uncle in Pine Bluff and attended what was then the all-black Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal College (AM&N), now called the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.
Walker studied sociology. At the time, the Central High School desegregation crisis was unfolding in Little Rock after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in
After Arkansas AM&N, Walker matriculated to New York University and obtained his master's degree in education. He earned his law degree from the Yale Law School and made his way to Little Rock in 1965.
Illinois Pregnancy Discrimination Law
His first case, which he caught before hanging a shingle, was to represent 450 black high school students who were arrested in Forrest City while protesting racial discrimination, according to the High Profile article.
John Walker was a brilliant lawyer and devoted public servant who spent his life fighting to give all Arkansans the opportunity to succeed, Clinton said in a statement. From the courtroom to the Capitol, he never wavered in his pursuit of justice or his belief that a democracy only works when everyone can participate fully.
Walker, who had already founded the state's first integrated law firm, long worked alongside white attorneys. He and Kaplan worked together until 1978.
Top Discrimination Attorneys
John understood -- because he had that experience growing up in Hope -- he understood what that milieu could do to disadvantage a child who was not as exceptional as he was, Kaplan said. That clearly motivated him. He didn't talk a lot about it. What he talked about was making sure the law was followed.
He was part of the team that agreed to a $17.5 million settlement in a nationwide lawsuit against Walmart Inc. in 2009 over allegations that the company discriminated against black people in its recruitment and hiring of truck drivers.
In one of his most public and contentious cases, Walker represented fired Razorbacks basketball coach Nolan Richardson in his lawsuit against UA. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2004, and the decision was upheld on appeal.
On The Air Radio — Center For Arkansas Legal Services
He did his research, Richardson said. Just about anything he talked about, he already knew the answers. ... His kindness, in his rapport with others that were around him, he was just smooth as silk. You won't meet a better person, I can tell you that.
Mays said Walker's legacy was more than the winnings in individual cases, ticking off names of black executives at Arkansas firms who he said were given opportunities because of cultural changes made by the companies after lawsuits.
A lot of the brothers went into those positions as a result of settlements as a result of lawsuits that John filed alleging a pattern of discrimination at the upper [management] levels, Mays said.
Aawl Student Chapter Honors Witherspoon As Distinguished Woman Of The Year
There is no natural successor to Walker -- whose contemporaries remembered him as brilliant and tenacious, a gadfly and a thorn in the side, a courageous attorney who took on the state's most powerful institutions.
We're at a point where maybe society has changed enough, at least in the South, so that we don't need that much energy and aggressiveness just to deal with basic human rights, Mays said, adding later that that might be an overly optimistic perspective.
Skip Rutherford, dean of the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, remembered agreeing with Walker, disagreeing with him and maintaining a loyal friendship throughout.
Vanessa Kinney, Attorney At Law
I think it was a life well lived, said Rutherford, who worked with Walker in desegregation cases as a Little Rock School Board member from 1987-91. I think it was a life that sparked controversy [because] he often made the comfortable uncomfortable. He sure gave a lot of hope to people. He was the voice of the voiceless.
Walker's death comes almost 37 years after the Pulaski County school desegregation case began and several
0 comments
Post a Comment