Walter Harris (September 28, 1941 – October 12, 2024) was an American chess player.
Harris was the first African-American chess player to earn the USCF title of National Master.
At that tournament, he was unable to rent a room at the tournament's hotel (Sheraton-Fontenelle Hotel) due to racial segregation.
[2] Harris, along with Frank Street Jr., Leroy Jackson (Muhammad), and Kenneth Clayton, have been regarded as pioneers of African-Americans in chess in the 1960s.
[3] Harris studied physics at University of California, Los Angeles,[2][4] and was a career physicist at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.