Walter Hubbard dies; was head of National Office for Black Catholics

Published: 2007-05-17

SEATTLE (CNS) -- A funeral Mass was celebrated May 12 in a chapel at Seattle University for Walter Hubbard Jr., a national African-American Catholic leader who had headed the Seattle-based National Office for Black Catholics since 1970. Hubbard, 82, died May 5 in Seattle. No cause of death was given. He had served for two decades on Jesuit-run Seattle University's board of regents. Born in New Orleans Oct. 19, 1924, he worked as a skilled cloth-cutter in the garment industry. He later became active in the trade union moment, serving as president of local unions in Seattle that represented garment workers and liquor store clerks, before becoming an insurance company executive. After fighting against the Nazis with the Army in Europe during World War II, Hubbard returned home to fight multiple enemies in racism, bigotry and discrimination. From 1966 to 1970, he was executive director of Project Caritas, a youth and adult education program in Seattle. In the 1970s he worked for the Washington State Human Rights Commission as a contract-compliance specialist responsible for enforcing a federal court order opening work in the building trades to blacks and women.

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