By Sean Yoes
AFRO Baltimore Editor
syoes@afro.com
Walter P. Carter was the Baltimore chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), at the zenith of the group’s power and a giant of the Civil Rights Movement. His daughter State Sen. Jill P. Carter spoke to the AFRO about her father and the legacy of CORE.
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), was founded in Chicago in 1942, as a multi-racial, multi-ethnic civil rights organization. In 1947, the group organized what it called a two-week “Journey of Reconciliation,” with a group of eight Black men and Eight White men, through the Southern states of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky in an effort to end segregation in interstate travel. Members of the group were arrested and jailed several times during The Journey of Reconciliation, which was a precursor to the “Freedom Rides” of the 1960’s. Some of the most famous civil rights warriors who emerged from the group on the national stage were James Farmer, one of the founding members and Bayard Rustin, one of the architects of the American Civil Rights Movement.
But, one of the fiercest leaders of CORE’s local chapters was Walter P. Carter, the man who led the Baltimore chapter of CORE.
Although he died in 1971, his work in the Movement was prodigious and his legacy in Baltimore’s rich civil rights history is ubiquitous. Part of that legacy is his daughter, Sen. Jill P. Carter, who represents the 41st District of Baltimore City.
“He had no fear. He believed his cause was just and he would not be deterred by anyone or anything. His cause was freedom for Black people,” Carter told the AFRO.
“While my father was chair of CORE, the organization was at its strongest.
He led demonstrations and direct actions to combat segregation in Baltimore and throughout Maryland including the Route 40 freedom rides. Freedom Rides don’t sound radical today but at the time they were so dangerous many civil rights leaders refused to participate in them, including the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. The Howard Johnson’s chain and White Coffee Pot were among the more notably resistant establishments,” Carter added.
Carter, who first entered the Maryland General Assembly in 2002, as a delegate for the 41st District, has waged and won many political wars during her career and she continues to be fueled by the memory of her father.
“My dad once described CORE as ‘the most potent force to come along for Black folks.’” He was fully committed to Black liberation and nothing mattered more than that. His philosophy, as leader of CORE, was to fight segregation militantly, forcefully and unrelentingly. He has been described by numerous other activists as a brilliant strategist. He spent countless hours every day organizing, mobilizing and planning. He said, ‘You got to be militant but you got to be smart. You got to operate on soul feeling. Your goal’s got to be liberation, not integration,’” said Carter.
“He was deeply loved and revered by those that believed in freedom and equality, but just as fiercely hated by those that sought to maintain inequality,” she added.
Perhaps, Walter Carter’s arch nemesis is the man many people credit as one of the shrewdest and most ruthless politicians in Baltimore’s history, William Donald Schaefer, who ascended to be the city’s mayor, Maryland’s comptroller and governor.
“One of his most ferocious opponents was William Donald Schaefer who ascended to mayor on the heels of my father’s untimely death.
Schaefer, upon blocking my father’s nomination as director of the CAA, was quoted as saying, Walter Carter was ‘too radical’ in his efforts to achieve equality for the city’s Black population,” Carter said.
“Growing up, there were people that told me ‘Schaefer killed your father.’ I knew they meant it figuratively. My father, and many others, saw his appointment to head the Community Action Agency as the best opportunity to achieve fair housing for Black people throughout the city. He knew then that his rejection was rejection of Black equality in Baltimore. It was an enemy strike whose wound has not healed, even now, 50 years later as we still suffer savage inequality,” she added.
Ultimately, Baltimore has birthed some of the most important civil rights leaders this country has ever seen and Walter Carter took a back seat to none of them.
“He was selfless. He gave back every dime he was given after he organized over 15,000 Baltimoreans to attend the 1963 March on Washington,” Carter said. “His raison d’etrê became that of freedom and liberation at all cost for his people. Rev. Vernon Dobson called him the ‘most courageous man I’ve ever known.’”
