Longtime Wichita politician Billy Q. McCray remembered as ‘advocate for the community’

Wichita’s Billy Q. McCray, whose service in the Kansas House and Senate and as a Sedgwick County Commissioner made him one of the longest-tenured African-American statesmen in Kansas history, has died.

Mr. McCray was 84. He died Saturday. Funeral services with Jackson Mortuary are pending.

“He was a great politician,” Sedgwick County Manager William Buchanan said Monday. “I say that with the deepest respect.

“He was always made it clear what he would do and not do. He was a man of his word. Once he told you he would do something, he did it.”

Mr. McCray was born Oct. 29, 1927, near Geary, Okla. He was one of eight children born to John Joel and Ivory McCray, migrant workers who picked crops in California, Arizona, Texas and Oklahoma.

Some of his older brothers were born in California, said Mr. McCray’s daughter, Melody McCray-Miller, who currently serves in the 89th House District, which represents parts of northeast Wichita and Park City.

“Even though his father was on the migratory roads, he was the bookkeeper for the overseers,” McCray-Miller said. “His father kept the books in both English and Spanish. He was brilliant.”

By the time he was ready to attend high school, the McCray family’s economic situation had stabilized. Mr. McCray attended Booker T. Washington High School in Dover, Okla. – and later, Langston University in Oklahoma and the University of Colorado.

By the late 1940s, he joined the U.S. Air Force, where he learned photography skills.

He moved to Wichita in 1951, when he was stationed at McConnell Air Force Base. After he was discharged from the service, Mr. McCray was hired at Boeing, eventually becoming one of the first African-Americans on the photography team. He worked at Boeing for 24 years.

In the 1960s, with the rise of the civil rights movement, McCray became active in the NAACP, speaking out on the need for fair housing and against restrictions that prevented black people from buying any houses they could afford.

It was also a time when the Supreme Court handed down the one man, one vote mandate. It caused Kansas to redraw its legislative boundaries, creating the 77th district in northeast Wichita and giving the neighborhood – predominately African-American – its first chance at a voice in Topeka.

Mr. McCray, who could speak eloquently in public settings, was encouraged to run on the Democratic ticket for the state Legislature in 1966. He served in the House from 1966 until his election to the Kansas Senate, where he served from 1972 to 1984.

“I always thought he was intelligent, compassionate and his judgment was good," Vincent Bogart, a leader in the Democratic Party at the time, told The Eagle in 1994. “And I always liked him. Billy was a person that you liked, not just a person that you respected for his abilities."

Mr. McCray then became director of the Office of Minority Business in the Kansas Department of Economic Development in 1984 before being elected to the Sedgwick County Commission in 1986. He resigned that post in 1993, marking 25 years in politics.

He lost only one election in his political career: the race for secretary of state in 1982.

“I didn’t see a lot of dad during those years,” McCray-Miller said. “He was larger than life. He was a public servant. People were always calling, coming over to the house. My mom kept the house going. It was a team effort.”

Mr. McCray was married to his wife, Wyvette, for nearly 45 years. She died in 1995.

In addition to politics, Mr. McCray also founded the Community Voice, a neighborhood newspaper, and later formed McCray and Associates, a consulting firm, to help entrepreneurs land government contracts, clear political hurdles and market their products.

Mr. McCray’s political legacy, his daughter said, is that he would always ask himself one question at the end of each session:

“He would ask, ‘What have I done for the people?’ He was an advocate for the community,” she said.

This story was originally published June 4, 2012 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Longtime Wichita politician Billy Q. McCray remembered as ‘advocate for the community’."