Richard Walter Thomas
African American professor (b. 1939)
Richard Walter Thomas (born April 2, 1939) is a retired African-American professor of Michigan State University known for his work in black issues and race relations. He has published a number of scholarly works, his poetry has been gathered in various anthologies, and he has given a variety of talks, workshops, and interviews on issues of race and race relations.
Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, in his later youth Thomas was introduced to the early forms of black power movements and joined the Baháʼí Faith in 1962. He met people like Margaret Danner and Ron Milner. Thomas then became a student at Michigan State University (MSU) in 1966. When he returned home that summer he experienced the 1967 Detroit riot, and after some campus activism and success publishing, in his junior year he attended the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr. and began an activism on race issues on and beyond campus. In his senior year Thomas founded an assistance program for black students on campus, wrote for the campus newspaper and transitioned directly to a Master's Degree program. In 1970 Thomas graduated and joined the staff of the new Center for Urban Affairs on campus and his poetry was included in A galaxy of black writing. Around the same time Thomas married South Carolinian June Manning.
The public source identifies “Richard Walter Thomas” as african American professor (b. 1939). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Richard, Walter and Thomas.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q83594114. VIAF identifies the subject as 28588861. The Library of Congress control number is n87805004. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1939, 1962, 1966 and 1967.
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This entry incorporates text from “Richard Walter Thomas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.