Rev. Walter Goodin; Formerly Led Compton NAACP

The Rev. Walter Goodin, 52, past president of the Compton branch of the NAACP. Goodin, a Baptist minister who was born in Birmingham, Ala., was a member of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People for more than three decades. As first vice president of the Compton chapter in the early 1990s, he helped then-President Royce Esters reinvigorate the branch by setting up programs, registering voters and taking direct action on issues such as fair employment and neighborhood trouble-shooting. The Compton branch acquired a maverick image in 1991 when it defied national NAACP leaders by supporting the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. Threatened with removal, the Compton branch officers later signed a joint statement with then-NAACP Executive Director Benjamin Hooks declaring that their endorsement of Thomas, a black conservative appellate court judge who was later confirmed to succeed retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall, was “an expression of the sentiment of the Compton branch,” not an official NAACP position. Goodin defended his chapter’s stand, saying, “We showed them we are not invertebrates. We have backbone.” Goodin, who was elected chapter president in 1998, was a vocal critic of Compton schools and ran unsuccessfully for the Compton school board and City Council. He is survived by his wife, Nancy, and four children. On Feb. 2 after a long illness at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles.