The Mildred Pitts Walter papers document Mildred and Earl Walter’s participation in civil rights protests in Los Angeles in the 1960s as part of the Los Angeles branch of the Congress of Racial Equality (C.O.R.E.) and as parents at Manual Arts High School.

Author, activist, and educator Mildred Pitts Walter (1922- ) was born in Sweetville, Louisiana in 1922 to Paul Pitts, a lumberman, and Mary Ward Pitts and raised in southwestern Louisiana near DeRidder, Louisiana. After graduating from Southern University in 1944, she followed her sister to Longview, Washington to work in the shipyards during World War II and shortly thereafter moved to Los Angeles, California. In Los Angeles, she gained her teaching certificate at California State University allowing her to work as an elementary school teacher and met her husband Earl Lloyd Walter, a fellow graduate of Southern University, at a Methodist church event. They both became active members of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (C.O.R.E.) fighting for fair employment and fair housing. They picketed banks, retail stores, and other businesses in central Los Angeles that were not hiring non-whites for non-menial positions. Earl Walter served as the chapter’s branch chairman and they sued builders that would not sell houses to non-white homebuyers and led voter registration drives and de-segregation efforts in the American South.

.25 linear feet (1 box)

Permission to publish from the Mildred Pitts Walter Papers must be obtained from the African American Museum & Library at Oakland.

No access restrictions. Collection is open to the public.