In Honor of Walter P. Riley
Walter P. Riley Biographical Information
Walter P. Riley is a Black civil rights attorney and an activist. He grew up in Durham, North Carolina, where he suffered and saw all the indignities of Jim Crow and White supremacy. He was born the 9th of 11 children to tenant farmer parents living in a structure with dirt floors built for slaves. He started working in the tobacco fields when he was five.
Mr. Riley joined the civil rights movement as a child at the age of 12. He was first inspired to do so when he went to downtown Durham to pay the family bills and saw a picket line of Black people protesting in front of the Kress Department Store. He asked what was going on and learned that the picketers were marching for equal access to all parts of the store and demanding the store treat Black patrons with the same dignity afforded White patrons. Since that day, Mr. Riley has been an organizer demanding dignity, equality, and equity not only for himself, and not only for Black people in the United States, but for all oppressed people around the world. In his high school yearbook, Mr. Riley’s stated ambition is to become a lawyer.
As a teenager, Mr. Riley was a leader in the civil rights movement, organizing, leading, and participating in protests and sit-ins, along with meeting with and being mentored by local and national civil rights’ leaders. He became the president of the youth chapter of the local NAACP, at that time one of the most active and aggressive chapters in the country. He picketed to integrate the Royal Ice Cream Parlor, the sight of sit-ins long before the famous Greensboro sit-ins and led the fight to integrate the local Howard Johnson’s and the Carolina Theater and other establishments in Durham. He was mentored by civil rights icon, Floyd McKissick who was his motivation for becoming a lawyer. When he was just 16 years old, he spent a full night discussing the direction of the movement with Medgar Evers. When he was 18 years old, he moderated a conversation between Mr. McKissick and Malcom X. When he was 19 years old, he was slated to speak at the March on Washington but was unable to attend.
In 1965, Mr. Riley moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, with his then wife, Candida Pugh, a former Freedom Rider and civil rights activist in her own right, and he began his college career at San Francisco State University along with participating in many of the social justice movements occurring in the Bay Area at that time. At SFSU, he was a student activist and an outspoken participant in the groundbreaking 1968 student strike which led to the creation of the nation’s first College of Ethnic Studies. His passion for direct action called him to leave college in late 1968.
His activism was all encompassing. He became a bus driver and played an instrumental role in establishing the rank-and-file Black Caucus among Muni bus drivers, advocating for fair treatment and equal opportunities. He also served as vice president of the Peace and Freedom Party for which Eldridge Cleaver was the president and the party under which Mr. Cleaver ran for President of the United States. Mr. Riley worked with Cleaver and others to establish the Black House in San Francisco, an intellectual gathering space for members of the Black Panther Party. He served as Kathleen Cleaver’s campaign manager in her bid for state assembly.
In 1969, Mr. Riley relocated to Chicago and then in 1973 to Detroit, where he continued his advocacy work in various capacities. He served as a welfare organizer, housing advocate, and rank-and-file labor activist in the automobile industry. These experiences further solidified his understanding of the interconnectedness between economic justice and racial equality. While in Detroit, Mr. Riley completed his degree at Wayne State University.
In about 1976, Mr. Riley returned to the Bay Area and, in 1980, received his law degree from Golden Gate University. Mr. Riley added activist lawyer to his toolbox, having long recognized the potential of the legal system as a powerful instrument for social change.
As a father and grandfather, Mr. Riley has been acutely aware of the devaluation of Black lives within the dominant society. He taught his children and grandchildren to be conscious of their safety as Black individuals while actively engaging in struggle and community involvement. He showed them the importance of being part of movements that bring about change.
Despite his almost seven decades of fighting for social justice in so many arenas (social, educational, housing, legal, economic, etc.) that impact disenfranchised and oppressed communities, Mr. Riley remains committed to advocating for youth empowerment and a future free from police violence and racial discrimination. He firmly believes in challenging the system and engaging in nonviolent tactics of public confrontations, sit-ins, and major demonstrations to bring about transformative change. Recognizing the historical violence inflicted upon Black people, he understands the importance of resistance and collective action.