Sam Brownback: “it gives me great pleasure to join with my colleagues today and honor a native Kansan who, 52 years ago, committed an…”

“it gives me great pleasure to join with my colleagues today and honor a native Kansan who, 52 years ago, committed an act of courage that was the basis for inspiring many civil rights movements throughout our country, the late Dr. Ronald Walters, humanitarian, civil rights activist and educator. In 1958, a young Ronald Walters returned to his hometown of Wichita, KS to work during his summer break from Fisk University in Nashville, TN. Like most college students, Ronald would often eat at one of the local Wichita hangouts for his lunch break, which, at the time, were segregated. Seeing the injustice of the segregation, Ronald and his cousin, Carol Parks, decided to organize a sit-in at one of the most popular lunch spots in Wichita, Dockum Drugstore. Ronald and his group of protestors silently sat at the Dockum's lunch counter in protest of their segregated policy. They were taunted for their action, but the taunting inspired more people to join the sit-in protest, both black and white. After more than three weeks of the silent sit-in, the owner decided to discard the policy of segregated counters due to the fact the sit-in had caused him to lose too much money.”