Louisville Urban League

Mr. Coleman is a employee of the Louisville Urban League. This interview concerns his involvement with the Urban League and the Louisville Civil Rights movement.

Art Walters, born in 1918 in Magnolia, Kentucky, moved to Louisville following his time in the Army. He was drafted into the army while attending Kentucky State College, an all Black school, in his junior year. He served in the Army Corps of Engineers and was first stationed at Fort Bellview, Virginia. He was commissioned to Second Lieutenant and served the rest of his twenty years in the service as a commissioned officer and served in the Second World War and during the Korean War. Following his retirement from the army, he was approached by the Urban League where they hired him as the Industrial Relations Secretary, later changed to the Director of Economic Development and Employment, and Director of Education and Youth Incentive. He worked with the Urban League from 1963 until he retired. Topics covered in the interview include: his time in the army, his hiring with the Urban League, the projects and programs that he worked on in both roles including the On The Job Training Program and the Labor Education Advancement program, the cooperation and work between the Urban League and other groups within Louisville, the role that the Urban League played in busing, the anti-busing demonstrations that took place, the change in the Urban League over the years, the general philosophy and make up of the Urban League, their approach to securing opportunity, strengths and weaknesses, and his involvement outside of the Urban League during his time in Louisville.

Mr. Walters was an executive director of the Urban League of Louisville. He discusses his early life and education; his twenty-year career in the Army; his experiences and views on integration; and his work with the Urban League.