Margaret Walker
Born	(1915-07-07)July 7, 1915 Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.
Died	November 30, 1998(1998-11-30) (aged 83) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation	Poet, novelist
Nationality	American
Notable works	For My People (1942) Jubilee (1966)
Spouse	Firnist Alexander
Children	4

Margaret Walker (Margaret Abigail Walker Alexander by marriage; July 7, 1915 – November 30, 1998) was an Americanpoet and writer. She was part of theAfrican-American literary movement inChicago, known as theChicago Black Renaissance. Her notable works includeFor My People (1942) which won theYale Series of Younger Poets Competition, and the novelJubilee (1966), set in the South during theAmerican Civil War.

Walker was born inBirmingham, Alabama, to Sigismund C. Walker, a teacher, and Marion (née Dozier) Walker, who helped their daughter by teaching herphilosophy and poetry as a child. She was captivated by the bedtime stories her grandmother told her, which were often tales of slavery.^[1] She knew at a young age that she wanted to become a writer so that she could write books about people of colour that would not make her feel ashamed.^[1] Her family moved toNew Orleans when Walker was a young girl. At the age of 15, she showed a few of her poems toLangston Hughes, on a speaking tour at the moment, who recognised her talent.^[2] She attended school there, including several years of college at what is nowDillard University, before she moved north toChicago. With the help of her English professor, E. B. Hungerford, who was also her mentor, Walker learned all the different forms of English poetry, the English metrical system, scansion of a poem, and memorised versification patterns.^[1]

In 1935, Walker received her Bachelor of Arts degree fromNorthwestern University. In 1936 she began work with theFederal Writers' Project under theWorks Progress Administration of the PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt administration during theGreat Depression. She worked alongside other young writers likeGwendolyn Brooks andFrank Yerby. Her supervisor,Jacob Scher, was so impressed with her talent that he allowed her to work from home on her own material, a privilege accorded no other member of the Illinois staff.^[3] She was a member of theSouth Side Writers Group, which included authors such asRichard Wright,Arna Bontemps,Fenton Johnson,Theodore Ward, andFrank Marshall Davis.^[4]

In 1942, she received her master's degree in creative writing from theUniversity of Iowa. In 1965, she returned to that school to earn herPh.D.^[5]

Walker married Firnist Alexander in 1943 and moved toMississippi to be with him. They had four children together and lived in theMedgar Evers Historic District (formerly Elraine Subdivision) in the capital ofJackson.^[6]

Walker became a literature professor at what is todayJackson State University, an historically black college, where she taught from 1949 to 1979. In 1968, Walker founded the Institute for the Study of History, Life, and Culture of Black People (now the Margaret Walker Center)^[7] and her personal papers are now stored there.^[8] In 1976, she went on to serve as the institute's director.^[5]

In 1942, Walker's poetry collectionFor My People won theYale Series of Younger Poets Competition under the judgeship of editorStephen Vincent Benét, making her the first black woman to receive a national writing prize.^[8][9] HerFor My People was considered the "most important collection of poetry written by a participant in theChicago Black Renaissance beforeGwendolyn Brooks'sA Street in Bronzeville."^[10] Richard Barksdale says: "The [title] poem was written when "world-wide pain, sorrow, and affliction were tangibly evident, and few could isolate the black man's dilemma from humanity's dilemma during the depression years or during the war years." He said that the power of resilience presented in the poem is a hope Walker holds out not only to black people but to all people, to "all the Adams and Eves."^[11]

Walker's second published book (and only novel),Jubilee (1966), is the story of aslave family during and after theCivil War, and is based on her great-grandmother's life.^[12] It took her thirty years to write. Roger Whitlow says: "It serves especially well as a response to white 'nostalgia' fiction about the antebellum and Reconstruction South."^[13]

This book is considered important in African-American literature. Walker was the first of a generation of women who started publishing more novels in the 1970s.

In 1975, Walker released three albums of poetry onFolkways Records –Margaret Walker Alexander Reads Poems ofPaul Laurence Dunbar andJames Weldon Johnson andLangston Hughes;Margaret Walker Reads Margaret Walker and Langston Hughes; andThe Poetry of Margaret Walker.^[14][15][16]

Walker received aCandace Award from theNational Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1989.^[17]

In 1978, Margaret Walker suedAlex Haley, claiming that his 1976 novelRoots: The Saga of an American Family had violatedJubilee's copyright by borrowing from her novel. The case was dismissed.^[18]

In 1991, Walker was sued by Ellen Wright, the widow ofRichard Wright, on the grounds that Walker's use of unpublished letters and an unpublished journal in a just-published biography of Wright violated the widow's copyright.Wright v. Warner Books was dismissed by the district court, and this judgment was supported by the appeals court.^[19]

Walker died ofbreast cancer inChicago, Illinois, in 1998, aged 83.^[12]

Walker was inducted into The Chicago Literary Hall of Fame in 2014.^[20]

Walker was honoured with a historical marker through theMississippi Writers Trail.^[21]

• For My People. Ayer. 1942.ISBN 978-0-405-01902-9.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) (reprint 1968)
• Prophets for a New Day.Broadside Press. 1970.ISBN 9780910296212.
• October Journey.Broadside Press. 1973.ISBN 978-0-910296-96-0.
• A Poetic Equation: Conversations Between Nikki Giovanni and Margaret Walker.Howard University Press. 1974.ISBN 9780882580036.
• Richard Wright, Daemonic Genius: A Portrait of the Man, a Critical Look at His Work. Warner Books. 1988.ISBN 9781567430042.
• This Is My Century: New and Collected Poems.University of Georgia Press. 1989.ISBN 978-0-8203-1135-7.
• Graham, Maryemma, ed. (1990).How I Wrote Jubilee and Other Essays on Life and Literature.Feminist Press.ISBN 978-1-55861-004-0.
• Graham, Maryemma, ed. (1997).On Being Female, Black, and Free: Essays by Margaret Walker, 1932-1992. University of Tennessee Press.ISBN 9780870499807.
• Jubilee.Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 1999.ISBN 978-0-395-92495-2.
• Graham, Maryemma, ed. (2002).Conversations with Margaret Walker.University Press of Mississippi.ISBN 978-1-57806-512-7.

• Galley sheets forJubilee and original pre-corrected copy ofA Poetic Equation at Millsaps-Wilson Library, Millsaps College,Jackson, Mississippi
• Margaret Walker Alexander Room and Collection,Jackson State University^[22]

• For My People, The Life and Writing of Margaret Walker, distributed byCalifornia Newsreel.

Margaret Walker's evocative poetry has inspired new musical compositions by 20th and 21st-century composers. Inspired works includeRandy Klein's 2011For My People — The Margaret Walker Song Cycle, a song cycle for choir (formerly entitledLineage),^[23][24] andEdward W. Hardy's 2022BORN FREE, a song cycle for soprano, violin and piano.^[25]

Song of My Life: A Biography of Margaret Walker by Carolyn J. Brown, published 2014. This is the first biography of Margaret Walker.^[8]

• Amiri Baraka (January 4, 1999)."Margaret Walker Alexander".The Nation. RetrievedMay 7, 2013.
• Margaret Walker atSmithsonian Folkways
• "Margaret Walker: Select Bibliography"Archived 2014-08-08 at theWayback Machine, Modern American Poetry.
• Margaret Walker atthe Poetry Foundation

• 1915 births
• 1998 deaths
• African-American novelists
• African-American poets
• American women poets
• Federal Writers' Project people
• Yale Younger Poets winners
• Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni
• Jackson State University faculty
• Northwestern University alumni
• University of Iowa alumni
• American Methodists
• Deaths from breast cancer in Illinois
• Writers from Birmingham, Alabama
• Writers from Chicago
• 20th-century African-American writers
• 20th-century American novelists
• 20th-century American poets
• 20th-century American women novelists
• Novelists from Illinois
• Novelists from Mississippi
• Novelists from Alabama
• 20th-century African-American women writers

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