AEA is grateful to Ms. Onilaja Waters, a technical designer in the fashion industry for introducing us to Archie Waters' contributions to civil rights and research which comprises an archive important in preserving little known civil rights history.
Archie Waters, (1918-2001), journalist, political activist against racism, and chess expert
is the author of books on chess and was the first black member of the most competitive chess club in the United States, the Marshall Chess Club of NY. He was a mentor of Bobby Fischer whom he joined in Iceland during Fischer's landmark 1972 World Title Championship match against USSR's Boris Spassky.
Born in Brooklyn, Archie Waters was a reporter and columnist for community and daily newspapers in NYC, and later in El Paso, Texas, writing about the lives, challenges, and accomplishments of black people in all walks of life.
Onilaja Waters is a speaker about AestheticRealism as the knowledge which explains the cause of and answer to racism. In 2018 she facilitated AEA's interview with Robert H. Cohen, former director of the Federal Commission for Civil Rights—and thanked him for his role in enabling Archie Waters, to break a color barrier in the chess world in 1954.
In picture: Onilaja Waters meeting Robert H. Cohen, New York.
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