Margaret Walker
As a professor of English at Jackson State in 1968, Margaret Walker founded the Institute for the Study of the History, Life, and Culture of Black People. Already an accomplished author, she stood at the forefront of a nascent Black Studies movement, and the Institute reflected her immersion in 20th century African American history and culture. During her lifetime, she had the unique opportunity to be mentored by the likes of W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, and Richard Wright and to be a mentor to writers such as James Baldwin, Alice Walker, and Sonia Sanchez.
Born in Birmingham, Alabama, on July 7, 1915, Walker was reading and writing by the time she was five. When her family settled in New Orleans in 1925, her writing flourished after meeting Langston Hughes, who encouraged her to leave the South to complete her education. Graduating from Northwestern University, her father’s alma mater, in 1935, Walker stayed in Chicago to work with the Federal Writers’ Project. There, she developed a close friendship with Richard Wright and joined his Southside Writers Group.
Margaret Walker, 1915-1998
In 1937, Walker wrote her seminal poem, “For My People,” which served as part of her master’s thesis at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. For her work in her book of poetry, For My People, she became the first Black woman to receive the Yale University Younger Poets Award.
By 1949, Walker and her husband, Firnist Alexander, decided to move with their four children to Mississippi, so she could join the English Department at Jackson State. While there, she completed her doctoral dissertation in the Iowa program. Inspired by the memories of her maternal grandmother, Elvira Ware Dozier, Jubilee was published in 1966. It represented thirty years of research and reflection and has never since been out of print. The genre of fiction known as the neo-slave narrative emerged from Jubilee and came to include the likes of Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Alex Haley’s Roots.
Margaret Walker’s lasting achievement at JSU was her Black Studies Institute. As director, she organized several conferences that were the first of their kind, including the 1971 National Evaluative Conference on Black Studies and the 1973 Phyllis Wheatley Poetry Festival.
After thirty years of teaching, Margaret Walker retired as Professor Emerita and donated her literary and administrative papers to the Institute that she had founded and that was subsequently named in her honor. The Margaret Walker Papers at JSU constitute one of the single largest collections of a modern Black, female writer anywhere in the world. The Walker Center houses close to forty significant manuscript collections and an oral history repository with nearly 1,000 interviews.
Margaret Walker Center
College of Liberal Arts
Jackson State University
Ayer Hall
1400 J.R. Lynch Street
P.O. Box 17008
Jackson, MS 39217
Phone: 601-979-3935
mwa@jsums.edu
Keep up to date
with all MWC events
by signing up for the
MWC Listserv!