Richard Walton - Political and Community Activism

Political and Community Activism

Involved from 1980 with the Citizens Party of environmentalist Barry Commoner, Walton was the party's vice-presidential candidate in 1984 on a ticket headed by feminist Sonia Johnson as the party's presidential candidate. (Johnson's running mate on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket that year was Emma Wong Mar, however.) Walton had been interested in political third parties since at least the publication of his book on the subject, Henry Wallace, Harry Truman and the Cold War. Interviewed in 2008, Walton joked about his 1984 campaign for vice-president, "I don't think I attracted quite as much attention as Sarah Palin."

He went on to become one of the early members of the Green Party of Rhode Island. In the 1996 Presidential election in Rhode Island he was temporarily a stand-in candidate for Ralph Nader's official running mate Winona LaDuke. In the 2004 Presidential election, he endorsed Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb. He served on several national Green bodies.

Walton became well known as an activist against poverty, homelessness, and hunger. He served as president of Amos House, which is the state's largest soup kitchen, and on the boards of a number of non-profit and social service organizations, including the George Wiley Center (advocates for the poor), the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless, and the Slater Mill Historic Site. With the Providence-Niquinohomo Sister City Project he had been to Nicaragua many times where the project built a health center and a school, and he twice served on medical teams in Guatemala.

Every year for his own birthday from 1988 to 2011, Walton hosted a substantial charitable fundraiser at his home that was typically attended by several hundred people, including sitting and former governors, senators, congressional representatives, and media personalities who were in some cases his former students. The party was held for the first time at another venue in 2012.

Walton has received the Sister Carol McGovern Award of the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless for his work with the homeless and the John Kiffney Award of the Providence Newspaper Guild for his service to the community.

Involved with the non-profit folk music venue Stone Soup Coffee House for 30 years, he was the first president of its parent organization, the Stone Soup Folk Arts Foundation, and served for 15 years. After a hiatus of many years, he had been returned to office and was serving as president at the time of his death.

In 2008 at the age of 80, Walton was profiled and interviewed as part of a major feature article in The Providence Phoenix about prominent people in Rhode Island.