“Did anybody ever have a superficial conversation with Jim Button?” The pastor's question, posed to a crowded memorial service at the United Church of Gainesville, elicited smiles and vigorous head shaking. At the reception following the service, several graduate students, junior faculty, and staff members volunteered that they attended the service simply because Jim Button had repeatedly gone out of his way to show them friendship and respect. Both the question and the comments caught the essence of Jim Button. To professional colleagues, he was a path-breaking scholar of minority and urban politics, a pioneer in the academic study of gay rights, school-based health clinics, and the political mobilization of senior citizens. But Jim Button was loved and treasured because of his deep passion for his students, family, colleagues, friends, and for those Americans who had been treated unjustly by history and politics.

James W. Button, born in 1942, was raised in the small upstate town of Sodus, New York. A gifted athlete, musician, and prankster, he excelled academically and went on to attend Colgate University, his father's alma mater. On graduating in 1964, he decided to pursue a career in education. He obtained an M.A. in education from Stanford in a program that emphasized active student involvement in the educational process, a lesson that stuck. After teaching secondary school in Sunnyvale, California, he decided that political science was his forte, earning an M.A. at UCLA and beginning doctoral studies at the University of Texas. In 1973, two years before completing his doctorate, he made his way to the University of Florida where he worked for his entire academic career.

A concern for the underdog, a word he would never have used, pervaded all of his scholarship. His wife traced Jim's inspiration to the experience of working alongside the black migrant workers who came to his family's apple-cherry farm each year to pick the fruit. He was impressed, among other things, by how the women worked as hard and at the same tasks as the men. He gained a deep respect for their lives and a strong commitment to producing first-rate scholarship as an effective tool of social change.

His first book, Black Violence: Political Impact of the 1960s Riots (Princeton, 1978), grew out of his NSF-funded dissertation. The book displayed the traits that would recur in Button's subsequent research—specifically, an important substantive research question, a multimode research design, and a provocative answer. The book explored the policy impact of the urban violence in the 1960s by analyzing the responses of three key federal agencies. He combined systematic quantitative analysis of public data, case studies of selected communities, and depth interviews with key decision-makers, an eclectic mix of approaches that characterized all of his subsequent work. The principal finding, a powerful challenge to conventional wisdom about social change, was that violence worked—to a degree. Virtually every significant allocation decision by federal agencies after the riots was assessed for its effect on the prospect of further urban violence. While these reactions fell far short of promoting deep structural changes to address the poverty and inequality of life in urban America, they nonetheless suggested that policy makers became attentive to the consequences of federal programs for urban social conditions. Lauded by Contemporary Sociology as a “fascinating account of behind-the scenes policy making,” the book marked Button as an important voice in the ongoing debate about race and American public life.

Over his career, Button continued to ask whether the political system could address the needs of Black Americans but turned his focus to local politics. Shortly after arriving in Florida, he had begun to monitor political conditions for Blacks in six diverse Florida communities. He visited them periodically, interviewing local leaders and community activists, conducting archival research, and doing what later became known as “soaking and poking.” These visits included students as part of a research team. Drawing on these data, his 1989 book, Blacks and Social Change (Princeton), assessed how the political opportunities created by the civil rights movement had affected everyday Black life. What difference had Black empowerment made in terms of basic public services such as fire and police protection and private sector opportunities in housing and employment? In Old South communities where Blacks had long suffered repression and violence at the hands of Whites, Black mobilization was fiercely resisted and succeeded in part because of the actions of the federal government and local elites, who feared for social order if Black demands were not addressed. Greater success without as much external support occurred in younger, urban, “New South” communities. In both environments, Black elected officials became critical agents of change, publicizing opportunities that might otherwise have gone unknown in the Black community and recruiting African Americans for various positions in the public sector. While still conscious of the limits to conventional political action, this book was more hopeful about the payoff from non-violent mass mobilization. The Southern Political Science Association honored Blacks and Social Change with the prestigious V. O. Key Book Award.

At the time of his death, he had completed a third book manuscript dealing with race and politics. Race, Affirmative Action and Inter-Minority Competition, coauthored with Barbara Rienzo, looked specifically at the economic consequences of Black empowerment in the same six communities profiled in Blacks and Social Change. The study examines the puzzle of why Black economic achievement lagged so far behind the community's political progress. For this study, he augmented his normal method of data collection by conducting a systematic survey of business owners and managers, combining the interview data with aggregate data on community characteristics. The goal was to provide a fuller picture of “what kinds of jobs blacks are filling, how employers are recruiting and screening applicants, what skills employees need, the ways in which employers view black applicants and how black and white workers are responding to and viewing employment issues.” The study also factored in the inter-minority competition for jobs posed by the entry of new immigrants and more White females into the job market, anti-discrimination laws, and affirmative action. Some of the findings have already been published as the lead article in the 2003 volume of Social Science Quarterly. The most surprising finding was the potency of affirmative action: support for the principle of affirmative action by those in charge of personnel decisions made a significant contribution to Black employment success. Echoing a finding from Blacks and Social Change, Black hiring was accentuated when the person responsible for employee recruitment was a woman or member of a racial minority.

Understanding the Black civil rights movement as a powerful model, Jim also looked carefully at social movements on behalf of other disadvantaged groups. A series of publications coauthored with Walter Rosenbaum looked at the “grey peril” thesis, the claim that intergenerational political conflict would become a dominant motif in urban politics. While largely dismissive of alarmist findings, this research did recognize the potential for age-related political conflict on a subset of issues. The empirical study of gay politics was in its infancy when Jim spearheaded an investigation of this new frontier in civil rights activism. As with his studies of African Americans, Jim wondered whether politics as usual could make a difference in the lives of gay men and lesbians. Once again, he turned to a community analysis for an answer. In Private Lives and Public Conflicts (Congressional Quarterly, 1997), Jim and his two coauthors explored the impact of local laws and policies that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The principal data for this study was a survey of the nearly 200 communities that had passed such laws (along with a comparison sample of American communities) and case studies of gay rights politics in five particular cities. The book, written jointly with Barbara Rienzo and Ken Wald, demonstrated the impact of such laws on multiple levels. In his introduction to the volume, Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts drew from the book the central lesson that conventional politics could work for gay people. Despite their minority status, gays and lesbians found it possible to forge coalitions that passed ameliorative laws that, as the study revealed, produced significant changes in their life chances. Jim took particular pride when the data in the book were widely cited by activists campaigning for local gay rights legislation.

His concern for youth and sexuality prompted Jim to undertake another set of studies about the movement for school-based health clinics, institutions that attempted to deliver health care to young people in disadvantaged communities. These institutions were pilloried as “sex clinics” by critics who claimed that providing reproductive services encouraged teen sexual promiscuity. His research agenda sought to identify the factors that both promoted and retarded the effective delivery of health care through these institutions. Resorting to the same design he had used so often in the past, Jim and coauthor Barbara Rienzo surveyed the heads of several hundred clinics and supplemented their inquiry by intensive interviews in five communities. The Politics of Youth, Sex and Health Care in American Schools, published by Haworth in 2002, provided detailed accounts of these battles, tutoring health care advocates on the pitfalls that faced clinics and suggesting strategies for surmounting them.

As much as he embraced tools such as surveys and aggregate data analysis, Jim believed that research was incomplete without sustained human contact. Although his data came from people, he never reduced people to data, treating all his research sources with respect and dignity. This penchant for face-to-face interviews often called for considerable tact on his part and, on one occasion, for some discretion as Jim and a colleague found their interview with a business owner interrupted by an armed robbery. He also believed that researchers needed decompress from all that human contact, insisting that a day of field research conclude with a hearty meal, good wine, and a lot of laughter.

His teaching was very much of a piece with his scholarship. Button arrived at the University of Florida via the undergraduate division, known as the University College, where he taught interdisciplinary courses with historians, anthropologists, and sociologists. Many of his closest friendships dated from this experience. Moving into the department of political science a few years later, he maintained his enthusiasm for such courses and infused his political science offerings with diverse perspectives. Apart from handling the survey course in State & Local Politics, he taught upper division courses on the politics of poverty, minority politics, race, gender and change, and gay and lesbian politics. He also offered the graduate field seminar in Urban Politics.

Over the years, he acquired a reputation as an extraordinary teacher who demanded much of his students but gave back more. Twice named “Teacher of the Year” by various units at the University, Jim Button successfully conveyed his enthusiasm for the subject and created a classroom environment that welcomed spirited discussion, whether politically correct or not. He also knew how to keep a light touch. Confronting a two-hour instructional block for the freshman course in state-local politics, he wondered how to keep the course lively for the non-majors who took what was, by reputation, the most boring course in the political science curriculum. Jim hit on the idea of breaking the class at the midpoint with a Chinese-style group exercise session and followed that with a joke-telling contest in which he awarded the best story-teller with a small bonus on the next exam. These small gestures enlivened the class and made the students receptive to material they might otherwise have slept through. Similarly, long before “active learning” became a buzzword, he required his students in advanced classes to spend time in organizations related to the subject of study. He also assigned critical reaction papers so students would confront the assigned readings, not merely digest them. Students were also offered positions on his research projects, giving them direct field experience.

Borrowing from Will Rogers, one can say that Jim Button never met a student (or colleague, for that matter) whom he wouldn't mentor. Long lines formed outside his door during office hours and he seldom emerged from his office until late in the day. Beyond providing an opportunity for students to discuss class subjects or politics in general, these conferences often evolved into personal counseling sessions. Students opened up to Jim because of his sincerity and evident concern, telling him their problems, seeking his advice. Minority students, students struggling with personal decisions about sexual orientation, students with troubles of many kinds found in him a warm counselor, ready to help them find their way. Little wonder that he was named “Adviser of the Year” by the College of Arts and Sciences (1990) and statewide “Mentor of the Year” in 1995 by the McKnight Foundation.

Constitutionally incapable of compartmentalizing his life, Jim also promoted social justice through service to the community. He was an elected member of the Community Action Agency in Alachua County and an expert witness on behalf of minority plaintiffs in five federal voting rights lawsuits. He testified in front of local government bodies in support of anti-discrimination legislation and on behalf of benefits for same sex couples. In recognition of his steadfast commitment to improving the world through his research, teaching, and service, the University bestowed on him the President's Humanitarian Award in 2002.

His colleagues in the department of political science frequently called on him to play crucial institutional roles. At various points in his career, Jim was interim department chair, associate chair, undergraduate coordinator, and the chair of more search committees than anybody could remember. In fulfilling these roles, he was a tireless advocate of diversity, pressing his colleagues to expand the department's course offerings in minority politics, recruiting graduate students, and chairing searches for minority faculty hires.

Lest one imagine that only an ascetic could exhibit such single-minded devotion to social improvement, it's reassuring that Jim possessed a sense of humor that often skirted the edge of good taste and frequently obliterated it altogether. Over the years, he delighted in leaving wickedly obscene messages laced with double entendres on my answering machine, knowing they would prompt me to return his calls more quickly than I would otherwise have done. This sense of humor was in fullest display with his family. During the winter months, Jim regularly tried to warm up his elderly father in snowbound New York by sending a stream of salacious Florida postcards and seldom hesitated to share the cards with his colleagues whether they wanted to see them or not. As much as his father enjoyed receiving these missives, Jim got an even bigger kick out of sending them.

Jim was exceptionally involved with his family. Deeply engaged with sons Matt and Adam Bennett during their childhood in Bloomington, IN, he kept in close touch by letters, phone calls, and frequent visits. As they testified, he gave them enough love for several lifetimes. During his final years, he was delighted as the family circle expanded to encompass his daughters-in-law, Jen and Kathleen. He spent as much time as his health allowed with his grandsons, Max and Ty, visiting them often in Chicago and regaling friends with the photos and stories of the visits. Jim was also the social hub for his extended family of brothers and sisters, frequently hosting them in Florida or visiting them in New York and elsewhere. Following the tragic death of his brother Henry a few years ago, Jim naturally slipped into the role of family counselor.

Jim was fortunate to share his life with Barbara Rienzo, his wife since 1980. Barb was both a partner and research collaborator. Drawing on her academic specialization in health science education, Barb and Jim partnered to offer legendary sex education courses at their church. They offered the students information, honesty, and moral seriousness about human sexuality, receiving in return the gratitude and affection of their students. Jim and Barb also collaborated on the gay rights and affirmative action books.

Jim was a wonderful friend to many of his professional colleagues and fellow members of his church. He loved to dine with friends at raucous lunches and equally fulfilling dinners. As an administrator, he believed in the importance of social activity with colleagues and promoted departmental picnics, parties, and receptions.

For decades, Jim struggled with the pernicious medical condition known as chronic fatigue syndrome. Devastating on its own terms, the disease is even more toxic because so little research and treatment is available. As time passed, the disease grew more potent, the negative periods becoming more frequent, intense, and harder to shake. Jim's life became increasingly circumscribed. Lacking energy, unable to sleep, finding even reading increasingly difficult, he gradually retreated from full-time teaching, postponed research trips, and was facing early retirement. On his last visit to Chicago, he couldn't manage the strength even to play with his grandkids. Faced with the reality that medical science has nothing to offer to relieve his constant pain and exhaustion, Jim chose to end his life.

Losing Jim Button would never be easy because life seldom offers us such gifts of friendship and love. Those of us who worked with him were blessed to know him in life and can best honor his memory by striving to realize his values. His family has offered one way to do that by creating the James Button Scholarship, a needs-based scholarship to be given to a deserving graduate student in political science. Checks made out to the University of Florida Foundation may be sent to The James Button Scholarship Fund, Department of Political Science, POB 117325, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-7325.