David Walls (born October 21, 1941) is an
activist
Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...
and
academic who has made significant contributions to
Appalachian studies Appalachian studies is the area studies field concerned with the Appalachian region of the United States.
Scholarship
Some of the first well-known Appalachian scholarship was done by Cratis D. Williams. His 1937 MA thesis in English from the Univ ...
and to the popular understanding of
social movements
A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a Social issue, social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of Group ...
. He is professor emeritus of
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
at
Sonoma State University
Sonoma State University (SSU, Sonoma State, or Sonoma) is a public university in Rohnert Park in Sonoma County, California, US. It is one of the smallest members of the California State University (CSU) system. Sonoma State offers 92 Bachelor's d ...
(SSU) in
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
, where he was dean of
extended education from 1984 to 2000.
Early life and education
Born David Stuart Walls in
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
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, subdivision_name ...
, he grew up on the
Upper Peninsula of Michigan
The Upper Peninsula of Michigan – also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P. – is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula by t ...
and in
Duluth, Minnesota
, settlement_type = City
, nicknames = Twin Ports (with Superior), Zenith City
, motto =
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top: urban Duluth skyline; Minnesota ...
. He finished the last two years of high school in
Coral Gables, Florida
Coral Gables, officially City of Coral Gables, is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The city is located southwest of Downtown Miami. As of the 2020 U.S. census, it had a population of 49,248.
Coral Gables is known globally as home to the ...
. He attended the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
as an undergraduate from 1959 to 1964, earning a bachelor's degree in economics.
While at Berkeley, he was active in
SLATE
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
, the campus political party, and served a term on the board of directors of the
Associated Students of the University of California.
Work in Washington, DC
After graduating from UC Berkeley, he began work in 1964 as a management intern at the
Department of Health, Education and Welfare in
Washington, DC
)
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, serving as an assistant to
Mary E. Switzer, commissioner of the Vocational Rehabilitation Administration, and her deputy. In 1965 he transferred to the newly established
War on Poverty
The war on poverty is the unofficial name for legislation first introduced by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964. This legislation was proposed by Johnson in response to a national p ...
headquarters, the
Office of Economic Opportunity
The Office of Economic Opportunity was the agency responsible for administering most of the War on Poverty programs created as part of United States President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society legislative agenda. It was established in 1964 as an i ...
(OEO), where he worked in the
Community Action Program
In the United States and its territories, Community Action Agencies (CAA) are local private and public non-profit organizations that carry out the Community Action Program (CAP), which was founded by the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act to fight pov ...
, assisting
Jule Sugarman
Jule Meyer Sugarman (September 23, 1927 – November 2, 2010) was a founder of Head Start who also led the program for its first five years.Hevesi, Dennis"Jule Sugarman, a Director and Architect of Head Start, Is Dead at 83" ''The New York Times' ...
with the launch of Project
Head Start and funding student volunteer programs.
Work with Appalachian Volunteers
In fall 1966 Walls joined the staff of the
Appalachian Volunteers (AV), a nonprofit agency conducting community organizing projects in the central Appalachian coalfields of eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, and southwestern Virginia. He moved to
Harlan County, Kentucky
Harlan County is a county located in southeastern Kentucky. As of the 2020 census, the population was 26,831. Its county seat is Harlan. It is classified as a moist countya county in which alcohol sales are prohibited (a dry county), but conta ...
to supervise
VISTA
Vista usually refers to a distant view.
Vista may also refer to:
Software
*Windows Vista, the line of Microsoft Windows client operating systems released in 2006 and 2007
*VistA, (Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture) ...
volunteers. A year later he became field coordinator for the AV in the state, and moved to
Berea, Kentucky. When founding executive director Milton Ogle resigned in August 1968, Walls became the director for the organization's final year. Although his initial work in Harlan County involved organizing low-income people to demand representation on the Cumberland Valley's community action agency, he soon was drawn into the growing opposition to
strip-mining
Surface mining, including strip mining, open-pit mining and mountaintop removal mining, is a broad category of mining in which soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit (the overburden) are removed, in contrast to underground mining, in which ...
for coal, after a landslide from a strip-mine bench threatened a house at the head of Jones Creek, above Verda on the Clover Fork of the
Cumberland River
The Cumberland River is a major waterway of the Southern United States. The U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 8, 2011 river drains almost of southern Kentucky and ...
in Harlan County. The AV's support for people opposing strip-mining for coal led to sedition charges in
Pike County, Kentucky
Pike County is a county in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 58,669. Its county seat is Pikeville. The county was founded in 1821. With regard to the sale of alcohol, it is classified as a moist county–– ...
in August 1967 against an AV staff member and two workers for the Southern Conference Education Fund. Although the sedition charges were quickly dismissed by federal judge and former Kentucky governor
Bert T. Combs
Bertram Thomas Combs (August 13, 1911 – December 4, 1991) was an American judge, jurist and politician from the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Kentucky. After serving on the Kentucky Court of Appeals, he was elected the List of Gov ...
, the case undermined OEO support for the AV.
After Republican governor
Louie B. Nunn
Louie Broady Nunn (March 8, 1924 – January 29, 2004) was an American politician who served as the 52nd governor of Kentucky. Elected in 1967, he was the only Republican to hold the office between the end of Simeon Willis's term in 1947 and ...
was elected in November 1967, the AV faced an investigation by the Kentucky Un-American Activities Committee (KUAC). Walls issued a statement challenging the constitutionality of KUAC and the legality of the hearings. He refused an invitation to appear before the committee, but was not issued a subpoena, which he had hoped to challenge in court. In an interview with the Louisville ''Courier-Journal'', Walls summarized the outlook of the AV staff on the coalfield region:
An impatience with the slowness of change and paternalistic government programs; a distrust of experts who think they can solve the problems of poor people; a disgust with the way corruption is taken for granted in the mountains; a trust in the ability of poor people to solve their own problems, given the proper tools and money; a desire to end the colonialistic exploitation of Appalachia by corporations in Pittsburgh and New York and by small cliques of men in county seats; and a belief that the wealth of the area's mineral resources ought to go toward constructing a better way of life for all the people who live here.
Political pressures to terminate funding for the AV finally took their toll, and no further OEO support was forthcoming. After attempting an orderly spin-off or phase-out of AV staff and programs, Walls resigned as executive director in April 1970.
Activism and Appalachian studies at the University of Kentucky
Walls began graduate work in sociology at the
University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentu ...
(UK) in fall 1969, while still working part-time for the AV. In fall 1970 he began full-time studies at UK, moving to
Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is a city in Kentucky, United States that is the county seat of Fayette County, Kentucky, Fayette County. By population, it is the List of cities in Kentucky, second-largest city in Kentucky and List of United States cities by popul ...
, to live with a group of fellow graduate students in Collective One, a politically progressive household of five men and five women. With an offset press in the basement, Collective One printed leaflets for the local anti-Vietnam War and women's movements. The women in the collective were among the initiators of the
women's liberation movement
The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great ...
in Lexington. Collective members also helped organize participation in local and national demonstrations against the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
, and helped elect one of their group, Scott Wendelsdorf, to two terms as student body president. Walls married Lucia Gattone, whom he had met in
Prestonsburg, Kentucky
Prestonsburg is a small home rule-class city in and the county seat of Floyd County, Kentucky, United States. It is in the eastern part of the state in the valley of the Big Sandy River. The population was 3,255 at the time of the 2010 censu ...
while working for the AV, at Collective One on Thanksgiving Day, 1971. He received an MA in sociology in 1972 with a thesis comparing dialectical sociology in
Peter Berger and
Western Marxism
Western Marxism is a current of Marxist theory that arose from Western and Central Europe in the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the ascent of Leninism. The term denotes a loose collection of theorists who advanced an int ...
. After two years Collective One broke up as members went their separate ways to jobs and other graduate schools.
Remaining at UK, Walls worked toward a doctorate in sociology and edited ''Appalachia in the Sixties'' with his faculty mentor
John B. Stephenson John B. Stephenson (September 26, 1937 – December 6, 1994) was a sociologist and scholar of Appalachia, a founder of the Appalachian Studies Conference, and president of Berea College from 1984 to 1994.
Early life and education
John B. Ste ...
. In fall 1974, Walls accepted a faculty position of assistant professor in the social work program at UK. He also worked with a group of colleagues to organize the interdisciplinary Appalachian Center at UK, with a mission of promoting
Appalachian studies Appalachian studies is the area studies field concerned with the Appalachian region of the United States.
Scholarship
Some of the first well-known Appalachian scholarship was done by Cratis D. Williams. His 1937 MA thesis in English from the Univ ...
courses, research on the region, and community service. The Appalachian Center was formally established in 1976, with Stephenson named director, and Walls designated associate director. A meeting between Walls and
American studies professor
Alessandro Portelli
Alessandro Portelli (born July 8, 1942) is an Italian scholar of American literature and culture, oral historian, writer for the daily newspaper '' il manifesto'', and musicologist. He is a professor of Anglo-American literature at the University ...
during a visit to
Rome, Italy
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (Romulus and Remus, legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
...
, in 1973 led to a long-term exchange program, involving graduate students and faculty, between the UK Appalachian Center and
Sapienza University of Rome
The Sapienza University of Rome ( it, Sapienza – Università di Roma), also called simply Sapienza or the University of Rome, and formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", is a Public university, public research university l ...
.
Walls's doctoral research produced several articles and chapters that contributed to the emerging field of Appalachian studies. At the 1975 Appalachian Symposium held at
Appalachian State University
Appalachian State University (; Appalachian, App State, App, or ASU) is a public university in Boone, North Carolina. It was founded as a teachers college in 1899 by brothers B. B. and D. D. Dougherty and the latter's wife, Lillie Shull Dough ...
to honor Cratis D. Williams, Walls presented his paper "On the Naming of Appalachia", which identified the first appearances of "Appalachia" on the maps of early explorers and mapmakers. This conference served as a catalyst for the
Appalachian Studies Association
The Appalachian Studies Association (ASA) is an organization of scholars and activists interested in Appalachian studies.
According to its web site, “The Appalachian Studies Association (ASA) was formed in 1977 by a group of scholars, teachers, ...
. At UK, Walls elaborated on the application of the internal colonialism model to the Appalachian region, first developed by Helen M. Lewis, and collaborated with sociologist Dwight Billings on the sociology of the southern Appalachians, the structure of the coal industry for the
Ohio River
The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...
Basin Energy Study, and the foundations of the university's Appalachian studies curriculum. His Ph.D. in sociology was awarded in 1978.
Career at Sonoma State University
In 1982 Walls returned to California to take a job at
Sonoma State University
Sonoma State University (SSU, Sonoma State, or Sonoma) is a public university in Rohnert Park in Sonoma County, California, US. It is one of the smallest members of the California State University (CSU) system. Sonoma State offers 92 Bachelor's d ...
(SSU) as director of sponsored programs and general manager of the SSU Academic Foundation. In 1984 he became the dean of the school of extended education. During his tenure as dean, SSU introduced a BA degree completion program with a distance learning component, MA degrees in
liberal studies
Liberal arts education (from Latin "free" and "art or principled practice") is the traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term ''art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically the ...
and
computer
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...
and
engineering science
Engineering physics, or engineering science, refers to the study of the combined disciplines of physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, and engineering, particularly computer, nuclear, electrical, electronic, aerospace, materials or mechanical en ...
, and an expanded group of MA degrees in psychology, including
organizational development
Organization development (OD) is the study and implementation of practices, systems, and techniques that affect organizational change, the goal of which is to modify an organization's performance and/or culture. The organizational changes are ...
and
depth psychology
Depth psychology (from the German term ''Tiefenpsychologie'') refers to the practice and research of the science of the unconscious, covering both psychoanalysis and psychology. It is also defined as the psychological theory that explores the rela ...
. He received an academic appointment in sociology, and taught classes on the
civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
, the
environmental movement
The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement), also including conservation and green politics, is a diverse philosophical, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues. Environmentalists a ...
, and gender and social movements.
Walls authored ''The Activist's Almanac: The Concerned Citizen's Guide to the Leading Advocacy Organizations in America'', interviewing over a hundred leaders of national social movement organizations. After a favorable review of ''The Activist's Almanac'' in ''The Workbook'' (a quarterly aimed at activists in the Southwest), editor Kathy Cone invited several articles by Walls. These appeared in ''The Workbook'' between 1994 and 2000, when the magazine was discontinued by its sponsor. Walls's survey article on community organizing has since been updated online.
In the early 2000s Walls engaged in a dispute with Project Censored over what he saw as a denial of war crimes committed by Serbs in
Bosnia
Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and He ...
and
Kosovo
Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...
, specifically concerning atrocities at
Trnopolje camp
The Trnopolje camp was an internment camp established by Bosnian Serb military and police authorities in the village of Trnopolje near Prijedor in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the first months of the Bosnian War. Also variously termed ...
and
Omarska camp
The Omarska camp was a concentration camp run by Bosnian Serb forces in the mining town of Omarska, near Prijedor in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, set up for Bosniak and Croat men and women during the Prijedor massacre. Functioning in the fir ...
near
Prijedor
Prijedor ( sr-cyrl, Приједор, ) is a city and municipality located in the Republika Srpska entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As of 2013, it has a population of 89,397 inhabitants within its administrative limits. Prijedor is situated in ...
in Bosnia, and the
Račak massacre
The Račak massacre ( sq, Masakra e Reçakut) or Račak operation ( sr, Акција Рачак/Akcija Račak) was the massacre of 45 Kosovo Albanians that took place in the village of Račak ( sq, Reçak) in central Kosovo in January 1999. The ...
in Kosovo. Walls's article in ''
New Politics'' drew a supportive letter from sociologist
Bogdan Denitch Bogdan Denitch (born Bogdan Denis Denić, sr-Cyrl, Богдан Денис Денић; August 9, 1929 – March 28, 2016) was an American sociologist of Serb origin. He was a leading authority on the political sociology of the former Yugoslavia, an ...
and rejoinders from Peter Phillips,
Diana Johnstone
Diana Johnstone (born 1934) is an American political writer based in Paris, France. She focuses principally on European politics and Western foreign policy.
Early life
Johnstone gained a BA in Russian Area Studies and a PhD in French Literature f ...
, and
Edward S. Herman
Edward Samuel Herman (April 7, 1925 – November 11, 2017) was an American economist, media scholar and social critic. Herman is known for his media criticism, in particular the propaganda model hypothesis he developed with Noam Chomsky, a fr ...
and David Peterson, with replies to each by Walls. He was also critical of Project Censored's occasional inability to distinguish between sound and unsound science, as in the case of
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
's
Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its promotion of
9/11 conspiracy theories.
Walls stepped down as dean in 2000, and taught part-time at SSU for four years, retiring as emeritus professor in 2005. He has since taught short courses on the sources of social movement success for the
Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes
Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes (OLLI) offer noncredit courses with no assignments or grades to adults over age 50. Since 2001 philanthropist Bernard Osher has made grants from the Bernard Osher Foundation to launch OLLI programs at 120 univers ...
(OLLI programs) at SSU and other northern California campuses.
Selected publications
Appalachian studies
*David S. Walls and
John B. Stephenson John B. Stephenson (September 26, 1937 – December 6, 1994) was a sociologist and scholar of Appalachia, a founder of the Appalachian Studies Conference, and president of Berea College from 1984 to 1994.
Early life and education
John B. Ste ...
, eds., ''Appalachia in the Sixties: Decade of Reawakening'' (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1972).
"On the Naming of Appalachia" in ''An Appalachian Symposium'', ed. J.W. Williamson (Boone, NC: Appalachian State University. Press, 1977), pp. 56–76.
*David S. Walls and Dwight B. Billings
"The Sociology of Southern Appalachia" ''Appalachian Journal'', 5 (Autumn 1977), 131–144.
"Internal Colony or Internal Periphery? A Critique of Current Models and an Alternative Formulation" in ''Colonialism in Modern America; The Appalachian Case'', ed. Helen M. Lewis, Linda Johnson, and Don Askins (Boone, NC: Appalachian Consortium Press, 1978), pp. 319–349.
*David S. Walls, Dwight B. Billings, Mary P. Payne, and Joe F. Childers, Jr., "A Baseline Assessment of Coal Industry Structure in the Ohio River Basin Energy Study Region", 2 vol. (Urbana, IL: ORBES, June 1979). NTIS No. PB 82 103615.
*Dwight Billings and David Walls, "Appalachians," in ''Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups'', ed. Stephan Thernstrom (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 125–128.
*"Appalachia," in ''Encyclopedia of Appalachia'', ed. Rudy Abramson and Jean Haskell (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2006), pp. 1006–7.
*"The Appalachian Volunteers in Perspective," review essay of Thomas Kiffmeyer, ''Reformers to Radicals:The Appalachian Volunteers and the War on Poverty'', in ''Appalachian Journal'', vol. 37, nos. 1–2 (Fall 2009/Winter 2010), pp. 100–105.
Social theory
"Models of Poverty and Planned Change: A Framework for Synthesis" ''Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare'', 5 (May 1978), 316–326.
"Dialectical Social Science" in ''Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology'', ed. Scott G. McNall (New York: St. Martins, 1979), pp. 214–231.
Social movements
*''The Activist's Almanac: The Concerned Citizen's Guide to the Leading Advocacy Organizations in America'' (New York: Simon & Schuster/Fireside Books, 1993). . Updated overviews of thirteen social movements, with annotated bibliographies are located at
David Walls - Sonoma State University - Biographical Sketch*"Power to the People: Twenty Years of Community Organizing," in ''The Workbook'', Vol. 19, No. 2 (Summer 1994), pp. 52–55. "Thirty-five Years" update
David Walls - Sonoma State University - Power to the People: Thirty-five Years of Community Organizing*"Community Organizations," in ''Encyclopedia of the Consumer Movement'', ed.
Stephen Brobeck Stephen Brobeck is the director of the Consumer Federation of America.
Biography
Brobeck was born in 1944. He did undergraduate studies at Wheaton College and got his doctorate at University of Pennsylvania. In the late 1960s Brobeck was active in ...
(Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1997), pp. 120–122.
"Marching Song of the First Arkansas Colored Regiment: A Contested Attribution" ''
Arkansas Historical Quarterly'', Winter 2007, pp. 401–421.
*''Community Organizing: Fanning the Flame of Democracy'' (
Polity Press
Polity is an academic publisher in the social sciences and humanities. It was established in 1984 and has offices in Cambridge (UK), Oxford (UK), New York (US) and Boston (US). It specializes in the areas of sociology, media, politics, and soci ...
, 2015),
Human rights
"Dubious Sources: How Project Censored Joined the Whitewash of Serb Atrocities,"''
New Politics'', Vol. IX, No. 1 (New Series), Summer 2002, pp. 165–171.
"Debate: Did Project Censored Whitewash Serbian Atrocities?"''New Politics'', Vol. IX, No. 2 (New Series), Winter 2003, pp. 88–100 (commentary and responses by
Bogdan Denitch Bogdan Denitch (born Bogdan Denis Denić, sr-Cyrl, Богдан Денис Денић; August 9, 1929 – March 28, 2016) was an American sociologist of Serb origin. He was a leading authority on the political sociology of the former Yugoslavia, an ...
,
Edward S. Herman
Edward Samuel Herman (April 7, 1925 – November 11, 2017) was an American economist, media scholar and social critic. Herman is known for his media criticism, in particular the propaganda model hypothesis he developed with Noam Chomsky, a fr ...
and David Peterson,
Diana Johnstone
Diana Johnstone (born 1934) is an American political writer based in Paris, France. She focuses principally on European politics and Western foreign policy.
Early life
Johnstone gained a BA in Russian Area Studies and a PhD in French Literature f ...
, and Peter Phillips, with replies by David Walls).
Notes
External links
David Walls's Web site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Walls, David
American sociologists
American activists
Appalachian studies
Sonoma State University faculty
UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni
University of Kentucky alumni
1941 births
Living people
Writers from Coral Gables, Florida