John Winfield Walker (June 3, 1937 – October 28, 2019) was an American politician and a Democratic member of the

Arkansas House of Representatives The Arkansas State House of Representatives is the lower house of the Arkansas General Assembly, the state legislature of the US state of Arkansas. The House is composed of 100 members elected from an equal amount of constituencies across the ...

representing District 34 from January 2011 until his death.

Life and career

John W. Walker was born in Hope, Arkansas where he attended Yerger High School until 1952. In 1965, Walker began the general practice of law in Little Rock, Arkansas with the emphasis on civil rights. In 1968, he opened one of the first three racially integrated law firms in the south, first known as Walker and Chachkin. Between 1965 and his death in 2019, Walker was personally involved in most of the reported cases which involve racial discrimination in the state of Arkansas. Many of them are landmark having created new law and opened doors to school houses and work places throughout the state of Arkansas and surrounding states. One case took his time since 1965, the Little Rock school case started by the late

Wiley A Branton Wiley Austin Branton (1923-1988) was a prominent civil rights lawyer and activist from Arkansas. Branton rose to prominence after filing the suit against the Little Rock School Board which would eventually be heard before the Supreme Court. After ...

and LDF general counsel/later Supreme Court Justice

Thurgood Marshall Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African-A ...

. Many of Walker's early cases involved classes of people discriminated against by mega corporate environments due to their race. A recent case of Walker's was the only nationwide racial discrimination case ever successfully prosecuted against Wal-Mart. It involved a class of African American truck drivers. He died at his home in Little Rock on October 28, 2019, at the age of 82.

Education

Walker graduated from Jack Yates High School in

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

, in 1954. He was the first African American undergraduate student admitted to the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

after the ''Brown'' decision in 1954 but was not allowed to attend for racial reasons. In 1958, he graduated from Arkansas AM&N College in Pine Bluff, Arkansas with a degree in Sociology; in 1961 he received a master's degree from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

; and in 1964 he received a law degree from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Walker's first work was as an attorney with the

NAACP Legal Defense Fund The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (NAACP LDF, the Legal Defense Fund, or LDF) is a leading United States civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City. LDF is wholly independent and separate from the NAACP. Altho ...

(LDF) in New York. He remained associated as a cooperating attorney and later as a member of the Board of LDF.

Elections

*2010 When House District 34 Representative Wilhelmina Lewellen retired from the Legislature leaving the seat open, Walker placed first in the May 18, 2010 Democratic Primary with 1,461 votes (46.1%), won the June 8 runoff election with 1,611 votes (56.3%), and won the November 2, 2010 General election with 4,418 votes (76.4%) against Republican nominee Carolyn Smith. *2012 Walker was unopposed for both the May 22, 2012 Democratic Primary and the November 6, 2012 General election.

References

External links

Official page
at the

*
John W. Walker
at

Ballotpedia Ballotpedia is a nonprofit and nonpartisan online political encyclopedia that covers federal, state, and local politics, elections, and public policy in the United States. The website was founded in 2007. Ballotpedia is sponsored by the Lucy Bur ...

John W. Walker
at

OpenSecrets OpenSecrets is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that tracks data on campaign finance and lobbying. It was created from a merger of the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) and the National Institute on Money in Politics (NIMP). ...

1937 births 2019 deaths People from Hope, Arkansas African-American state legislators in Arkansas Arkansas lawyers Democratic Party members of the Arkansas House of Representatives Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development alumni University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff alumni Yale Law School alumni 21st-century American politicians 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century African-American people 21st-century African-American politicians {{Arkansas-politician-stub