On Aug. 28, 1955, 10-year-old Wallace “Wally” Webster II sat on the floor at home in Theodore, Alabama, with his brothers as his father paced back and forth in front of them, lecturing about survival and etiquette in Jim Crow-era South. On that same day, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy from Chicago was visiting relatives in Drew, Mississippi. He was accused of offending a white woman at a grocery store, violating an unwritten code of behavior of how Blacks interact with whites. That night, he was dragged from his relatives’ house, tortured and lynched. His body was found floating in the Tallahatchie River. 

“We did not have cell phones in those days, but the word traveled fast,” Webster said during his speech “Reclaim the Dream” at the 6th Annual Tribute to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Edmonds Waterfront Center. The event was sponsored by the Edmond-based nonprofit Lift Every Voice Legacy (LEVL), which shares Dr. King’s vision of a Beloved Community that promotes love, social and economic justice. Webster – a retired banker and longtime Lynnwood resident –  reminded the audience that such a vision stemmed from a time in the U.S. when segregation was the only way of life for many African Americans.

Webster recalled his father’s lecture about how Black boys must behave when they are around white folks in the Deep South, especially in Mississippi and Alabama.

“I could hear his voice now, ‘Don’t you ever look at a white woman in the face,’” Webster said. “‘You look down on the ground or you turn and go in a different direction. You say, “Yes ma’am!” or in those days, “Yasah.” And to a white man, you say, “No, sir.” Do you hear what I say? Do you hear me? Do you understand what I’m telling you?’ And that’s when he turned (to the discussion) about the boy from Chicago who came to Mississippi but he didn’t know the rules of segregation, and you see what happened to him.’”

Webster shared that Rosa Parks was arrested on Dec. 5, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, for not giving up her seat to a white man on a bus. The death of Emmett Till was still fresh among many Black communities, and the arrest of Parks galvanized the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a mass protest against the segregated bus system. It inspired many civil rights leaders – including Dr. King.

“The boycott was so successful that it got the local civil rights leaders to extend indefinitely this strike,” Webster said. “A group was formed called the Montgomery Improvement Association to support and sustain the boycott and formulate challenges to the Jim Crow laws. MLK Jr. was elected president of the MIA. He was a powerful orator. Local leaders believed he could rally the various factions of the Black American community to that cause. I remember vividly my parents and adults in our village doubled down on being safe and being aware of our surroundings because they were concerned that the KKK would easily find targets to strike fear and vigilance.”

After he graduated from high school in 1962, Webster moved to Pasco, Washington with less than $20 in his pocket. He carried two cardboard boxes with him on the five-day bus ride: One contained spare clothes, the other had a fried chicken, a pound cake and a loaf of bread that his mother made for him before he left. 

On Aug. 28, 1963, after Webster heard Dr. King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, he reflected and compared the segregation between Alabama and Pasco and asked himself, “Why?” Back then, the city of Pasco was segregated between east and west sides, divided by a railroad track and an underpass. Black and Asian Americans lived on the east side.

“Having witnessed Jim Crow cruelty, hearing the segregation in Pasco, I could hear the voice of Dr. King rising from the din, urging me to act, to speak out, and I did speak,” he said.

Webster attended town hall meetings and eventually organized the first chapter of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in the Tri-Cities, where he became its first president and launched the first and largest voter rights registration efforts in Pasco’s history. More than 350 residents in East Pasco became voter registrars for the first time. A few years later, he developed a federal economic funding program that resulted in the hiring of Pasco’s first Black police officer and establishment of the first Black business in the federal building in nearby Richland. With the help of U.S. Sen. Warren Magnuson and U.S. Congressman Michael McCormack, Webster helped build Pasco’s Martin Luther King Center. 

Despite being told that he was not “college material,” Webster completed two associates degrees in business and applied science, an undergraduate degree in accounting and a master’s degree in organizational behavior. He worked in the finance industry for more than 30 years until he retired in 2009 as a senior vice president of Bank of America in Seattle. Since 2019, he has been a member of the Board of Trustees at Edmonds College. 

“But I was not college material,” Webster said.

He credited Dr. King for giving him the determination to overcome the societal barriers and help others to do the same. “The Beloved Community is not just the absence of tension and conflict, but where people live together in peace and in harmony,” Webster said. “As Dr. King warned, to be bystanders in the face of opposition, silence is compliance. Let us carry Dr. King’s torch together, our voices as a chorus against injustice, and actions as a testament of our shared humanity…without hatred, without bitterness, without animosity but with humility.”

The 6th Annual Tribute to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. also included:

• Opening remarks by founder Donnie Griffin and author Richard Taylor.
• Honoring of the ancestral land by Diana White, an enrolled member of the Prairie Band of Potawatomi Indians and also of Cherokee descent.
• Choir performances by the Greater Everett MLK Celebration Ensemble.
• “Poem of a New Generation” by William Luckett.
• Several performances by jazz singer Josephine Howell and her band.
• A performance by Grupo Folklorico Nuestras Raices.
• Beloved Community Awards to Gloria J. Burgess and Community Foundation of Snohomish County.

In addition, the event honored the memory of rideshare driver Abdulkadir Gedi Shariff, who was murdered on Jan. 3 in Edmonds. 

— Story and photos by Nick Ng