Local businessman, activist James ‘Cookie’ McDonald dies at 90
James “Cookie” McDonald, a Washington businessman and activist who worked diligently to promote racial equality and expand opportunities for Black residents, died Thursday. He was 90.
McDonald died in the Canonsburg home of his daughter, Traci McDonald-Kemp, a judge on the Washington County Court of Common Pleas. She said she was “lost and heartbroken” over her father’s loss, “but my heart is lifted with the multitude of memories shared by people whose lives he touched.”
She continued, “He was a leader, a mentor, an advocate, a teacher, a righteous, loyal and honorable man and friend. He was a hero to me and so many others.”
Born and raised in Washington, McDonald first became a civil rights activist in the 1950s, in the era when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was leading the Montgomery bus boycott in Alabama and the Civil Rights Movement was first gaining steam. While serving in the U.S. Army in Virginia, Texas and Georgia, McDonald experienced firsthand the humiliations of Jim Crow laws that oppressed Blacks across the South. On his way back to Washington, he stopped at a diner and was informed, “We don’t serve your kind here. You’ll have to leave.”
McDonald later recounted the walk out of the diner was one of the longest of his life. He said, “I was willing to give my life for my country, but to these people I wasn’t worth a sandwich.”
However, enduring indignities like that was a spur to work for equality and fair treatment in his own hometown. Like other communities, Washington was largely segregated in those days – Black people were discouraged from swimming in the municipal pool, were barred from a bowling alley and kept away from retail jobs.
Striking up a friendship with Louis Waller, who worked in sales and led the Washington branch of the NAACP, McDonald was on the front lines of change in the community – it was an era where prejudice was still rife, but progress was being made. The first Black workers were given jobs at local factories and a Black patient was given a semi-private room at Washington Hospital.
Phyllis Waller, the daughter of Louis Waller, remembered him for his leadership skills, and his gregarious nature.
“I cared for him a lot,” she said. “He was a civil rights leader, a very caring person who I loved very much.”
McDonald became president of Washington’s NAACP branch from 1966 to 1970, when the organization opened its first office in the city. He also became a member of the Washington School Board. At the same time, McDonald became a Washington business leader, selling insurance and later entering a business partnership with L.C. Greenwood, a onetime defensive end for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
He was also involved in founding Community Action Southwest and the Southwestern Pennsylvania Legal Aid Society. A scholarship in his family’s name was established by the Washington County Community Foundation in 2021.
McDonald “was a gentleman and devoted father and grandfather,” according to Tom Northrop, former publisher of the Observer-Reporter. “He was quiet and humble and didn’t usually want to talk about himself.”
As news of McDonald’s death spread Friday, Washington County Commissioner Nick Sherman described McDonald as “a larger than life person.”
“If you were lucky enough to meet him, you liked him instantly,” Sherman said. “If there were ever a person that should be crowned Mr. Washington County, it would be Cookie McDonald.”