Spencer Walaitis (1947-1996): Believed in Democracy, Now
Spencer Walaitis sings
Spencer Walaitis was an activist, videographer, artist, craftsman, musician, deep thinker, and writer. Always an intense advocate for free speech and democracy, he believed people had the right to a meaningful life.
“Consciousness-raising was his thing and he did it damn well,” said Allen Cooper, life-long activist and former KUNM volunteer.
Spence, as he was called by friends, was born in Chicago, Illinois, June 12, 1947. He was the first child of Edward and Marcia Walaitis. His father worked for the Chicago Tribune and was also a watercolor artist. His mother was a crafts person. Often the family would travel to art shows. Spencer was involved in human rights from an early age due to the influence of his mother. Spencer credited the material and emotional support of his father, Edward Walaitis, as the reason he could be an artist.
After taking some art classes at the University of Illinois, Urbana, Spence joined VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) and moved to New Mexico in the 1960s.
“He was the working man’s, the poor man’s spokesman” is how his friend Roger Cultee put it at Spencer’s memorial service, which was a well-attended community event at the UNM Duck Pond and covered by the New Mexico Daily Lobo.
In VISTA he met activist Richard Moore, who told the story at Spencer’s memorial of how an eager young man from the shores of Lake Michigan was banned from the small New Mexico town of Mountainair for organizing Job Corps youth, while serving as a volunteer.
In addition to self-publishing the book Treatise on The Nuclear Winter and Public Good, Spencer ran a film series at UNM, and with others worked successfully to have a Peace Studies Minor established at New Mexico’s flagship university.
A life-long student, Spence continued to take classes at UNM, for decades, after being awarded his Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art in 1973.
Artist and friend Holly Wilson summed up Spence’s adult life as “fighting for the causes that he believed in, particularly ending the Vietnam War and the proliferation of nuclear weapons.”
A prolific writer and reader, Spencer was known for disseminating countless copies of articles he deemed vital to the understanding of anti-nuclear thought, as well as principles of democracy.
In his later years, he studied the Federalist Papers the most. The American revolutionist Tom Paine’s writings were likewise high on his reading list. In terms of contemporary writers and thinkers, he was impressed by Dr. Barry Commoner, the pioneering environmentalist who ran for U.S. president in 1980 on the ticket of the Citizens Party.
From his rambling old home on Edith Street in Albuquerque’s South Broadway neighborhood, Spence created striking, imaginative pieces of art.
“He was an incredible artist who used all kinds of media, from huge photo murals, to plastics, fiberglass, wood, stones, bones (which he gold plated) and any other material that came to hand,” read an article in Voces Unidas, the old publication of the Southwest Organizing Project.
“..But with his passing, many of us have a sense of loss of this philosopher and activist (whose) heart and energy were definitely on the side of our communities.”
Spence was a fine craftsman, and enjoyed being a vendor in Old Town, where he sold his wood inlay boxes and belt buckles. He later painted brilliant landscapes of movement and color and sold his art prints in Santa Fe and Albuquerque.
Mr. Walaitis was a regular of the UNM area, frequently seen wolfing down a plate of pancakes at the Frontier Restaurant and ready to take on the world as aromas of cinnamon rolls, New Mexican green chile stew and hot coffee scented noisy rooms, buoyant with la cultura nuevo mexicana.
For fun, the avid KUNM fan loved visiting Albuquerque’s zoo, the UNM Duck Pond and the mountains.
“He was always ready to launch into long conversations about the hot issues of yesterday, today and tomorrow,” recalled journalist and friend Kent Paterson, who first met Spencer in the late 1970s.
“The nuclear arms race, Iran Contra, Bob Dylan, his beloved Jemez Mountains, nothing was out of bounds for Spence. He was not only well rooted in history, but ahead of the times as well.”
Armed with a video camera, Spence became a fixture at public meetings and protests of all manner, recording history in the making in the Duke City and beyond.
In the early 1980s, Paterson helped Spence, former UNM professor Angela Delli Sante and Jessamyn Young edit a video documentary based on interviews Delli Sante and Spence conducted with indigenous Guatemalan refugees along the Mexico-Guatemala border.
“The voices and faces that were in their video were among the first public exposures of the systematic and widespread atrocities committed by the U.S. supported Guatemalan army against indigenous Mayan communities,” Paterson said. “These snapshots of genocide were later confirmed by the Guatemala Truth Commission and other investigations that documented the human rights travesty.”
Something of a cross between the pre-Newport Dylan and Phil Ochs, Spencer appeared several times on KUNM where he spoke out on the issues, played the guitar, blew the harp and sang.
This home-spun musician added his unique voice to the huge protests
and volunteer programmer strike known as the KUNM Radio War,
which erupted in the spring of 1987 after then-station management
unilaterally canceled daytime freeform in favor of a jazz and classical
music format.
Tapping into his bag of talent, Spencer composed and
sang a song that spoke of the movement:
KUNM Refugees
They’re saying we’re KUNM Refugees
They’re saying we’re KUNM Refugees
They’d like to see us talking from our knees
Lord Lord and we ain’t going to be treated this a way
The administration is saying we’ve got to go
They’re saying we have got to go
Hell no! We ain’t a gonna go Lord Lord
We ain’t gonna be treated this a way
The truth is a hard row to hoe
Especially on the radio
We want to see some justice at KUNM Don’t you know
And we ain’t gonna be treated this a way
Change has to come from you and me Man and God
KUNM the voice of community
Being heard is necessary to being free Lord Lord
We ain’t gonna be treated this a way
Show them what they have got to see
They’re going to hear from you and from me
We got to work together to produce democracy
And we ain’t going to be treated this a way
An 18-month conflict ended with the partial restoration of daytime freeform, the return of striking volunteers with a grievance procedure, and a 1988 legal settlement paving the way for the current Radio Board with the participation of volunteers, students and elected community representatives.
And true to form, Spence was around for the hot spring of 1989 when students occupied UNM’s Scholes Hall for two weeks, briefly rechristening the administration’s headquarters “Solidarity Hall,” in a protest against one of the first in a long string of tuition hikes.
By the early 1990s, Spencer cultivated a close friendship and creative collaboration with Native musician and jewelry maker Roger Cultee after the two met in Santa Fe while selling their products.
“I was going off to play Europe and Spencer was getting mad at me. “’You shouldn’t be a rock star, and don’t play electric’,” the guitarist and singer fondly recalled Spencer telling him in a Newport-like tone.
Cultee joked that he contemplated telling his new friend to “get an amp and an electric guitar” but never did.
Cultee and Walaitis made music together, along with Spencer’s old neighbor on Edith Street, the late Mr. Murthie Price, and old school blues musician with crackling laughter when the guitar riffs clicked.
It was down on Edith Street, south of Huning-Huning in the heart of ‘Burque, where the paths of an African-American bluesman from the South, a white folkie from the Windy City and an indigenous rocker from Washington state’s Quinault Nation all came together.
“The Edith Street Blues Brothers”
“I feel honored that I was in the position to be with the last of the purists,” Cultee said, adding that his friends’ folk and blues styles contributed to his own musicianship. The Duke City performer and songwriter said he was impressed by Spence’s original songs and lyrics, compositions which included such heady topics as torture in El Salvador.
“I really appreciated his songwriting ability because he was writing about things in the world that mattered,” Cultee said in a 2017 interview. “I realized he was in the social commentary department and I was going kind of in that direction.” For Cultee, the guitar has great power: “It’s an axe, you know. It’s a weapon.”
Spence’s bustling nest was located on Edith Street near Eugene Field Elementary and a couple blocks up from today’s Tortuga Gallery, where a recent reunion performance was held of Bonnie and the Boomerangs, one of the iconic Albuquerque bands of Spence’s times. Renovated shortly before Spence died, the home was a crossroads of coach-surfing, creativity, and collective consciousness making.
When in October, 1992, Spencer’s only child, Dawn, was born, he was joyous.
He gave the delivering doctor a large landscape painting. “I felt privileged to be with Spencer”, said Dawn’s mother, Terri. “He was a good husband and a nice, sensitive daddy. He honored me as the mother of his child. We were a little family.”
Spence was a naturalist and their family pleasures included being in the Jemez area when the spring blossoms were on the fruit trees and in the fall when the cottonwoods turned color. When it snowed, they were outside for a stroll. They watched the rain and thunderstorms together. They hiked with Baby Dawn on Spencer’s back on the paths of the Sandias.
The family hiked the two miles to McCauley Springs and through the Jemez River canyon. As he left his part-time job at UNM Student Union Building, Spence could be overheard saying, “I’m going to see my wife and baby.” Spence played music at EJ’s and displayed his art prints there. Later, he played at the Route 66 which Luther managed, for pleasure and the tips. One New Year’s Eve after playing at the 66, and then onto the sidewalk and into the wee hours of morning, he came home so happy, Terri said, with his pockets full of dollar bills and stories to tell.
In 1996, The Man from Edith Street became a leading advocate for adding Democracy Now! to KUNM’S permanent broadcast schedule. The New Mexico Daily Lobo printed his November 26, 1996 letter to the editor regarding the recent discussion by the Radio Board to discontinue Democracy Now!, which was a new production KUNM had started airing on a temporary basis before the presidential and congressional elections.
Making his case for Democracy Now!, Spence put the issue in a larger context of diminishing radio diversity, federal deregulation, media mergers and communications monopolies.
“This situation makes the few public radio stations not driven strictly by commercial interests the only light in the darkness for the public interest and public good…,” he wrote. “Face it: people are hungry for the truth. This is why it is imperative for the KUNM Radio Board to take a stand for human rights against the corporate tyranny by airing Democracy Now. Our lives may well depend on it…”
The death of Spencer Walaitis was momentous to KUNM. He collapsed and died of a heart attack at a KUNM station meeting on December 4, 1996, after giving an impassioned speech in support of keeping Democracy Now!
KUNM General Manager Richard Towne, who attended Spencer’s memorial service, later wrote in Zounds! about a woman, Dori Bunting, who spoke to friends and family gathered at the remembrance.
“Her words have stayed with me ever since. She said that death can be sudden so we must be certain to recognize and appreciate each other in the living present,” Towne wrote.
Former KUNM News Director Marcos Martinez, who had become acquainted with Spence over the years, also added his thoughts to the pages of Zounds! A late arrival to the crowded December 4 meeting, Martinez remembered Spencer offering him his chair. “My last words to him were, ‘Thank you, Spencer. Thank you,’” Martinez wrote.
For Martinez, Spence’s death stirred emotions about life, family, politics and society.
“Spencer Walaitis was a kind, gentle man who lived by his principles. He was not seduced by fashion, or by convenience, or by consumerism. Spence worked to promote nuclear disarmament,” Martinez wrote.
“He never lost the feeling, like so many of us have, that the existence of nuclear weapons is an insanity, and that our government’s policies about those weapons are psychotic…”
After Spence died, Democracy Now was added to KUNM’s regular broadcast schedule. More than two decades later, Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez and the rest of the crew can be heard on 89.9 FM Albuquerque Monday through Friday at 4 p.m.
“Today it is one of the most popular programs on the station, and KUNM has developed a special relationship with Amy Goodman, who pitches for the station during fundraisers and has visited New Mexico several times,” Holly Wilson said.
“So if you are a Democracy Now! fan, take the time every now and then to thank Spencer.”
Spencer Walaitis was survived by his widow Terri, their daughter Dawn, his sister Maria, and brother Chester.
For KUNM’s 50th Anniversary in 2016, the KUNM General Meeting voted to make Spencer an honorary volunteer.
Dedicated to Terri and Dawn, the late Albuquerque poet Charles Ulibarri wrote a poem a few days after his friend’s death. Here are a few lines:
“An Old House on Edith:
A Eulogy for Spencer Walaitis”
Deep, deep, deep into the night
in between each of the combustible sets…
Poets, artists and musicians would oft’ times congregate
to honor an exulted and beatific state
sharing beliefs, dreams, and ordeals
war stories swapped about challenging the monster machine
that seeks only to leave us broken, exhausted and drained
still, we spat at the foul flames that engulfed us
–outside of an old house on Edith
Secrets were shared
mysteries were hidden
in a place where dreams dared
to question the forbidden
an aura of peaceful rebellion and justice-seeking still emanates
–from a very unique old house—
–an old house on Edith
By Charles Ulibarri, December 8, 1996
Sources: Terri Blake, Kent Paterson, Holly Wilson, Roger Cultee, Charles Uilbarri, New Mexico Daily Lobo, Zounds! January 1997. Voces Unidas, August 1997.
edited by Kent Paterson
