with Wright ended rather abruptly and painfully.
Walker writes about her experience with Wright in
her detailed biography Richard Wright: Daemonic
Genius (1988).
Walker completed her master’s degree thesis,
For My People, in 1942. It became her first collec-
tion of poems. Walker became one of America’s
youngest black writers to have a volume of poetry
published in the 20th century. Through rhythmic
verses and strong imagery, the work affirms the
proud heritage and integrity of black Americans.
Generally, critics, reviewers, and her peers praised
the work.
In 1966, Walker published JUBILEE, which was
the basis for her doctoral dissertation begun at
Northwestern many years earlier. A neo–slave
narrative that incorporates actual and historical
events from slavery to Reconstruction, the novel
chronicles the life of the daughter of a slave, Walk-
er’s great-grandmother, Margaret Duggans Ware
Brown, on whom the character Vyry is based, and
a white plantation owner. When the novel was first
published, it had a mixed reception, but over the
years the novel has garnered more favorable criti-
cism, focusing specifically on Walker’s status as an
important historian, her characterization, and her
use of music.
After she published Jubilee, Walker returned
to writing poetry. She wrote the highly critically
acclaimed Prophets for a New Day (1970), which
depicts “a people striking back at oppression and
emerging triumph” (Collier). This slim volume,
unlike For My People, reveals an even more ex-
pansive political consciousness, which includes
her civil rights poems influenced by the turmoil
of the 1960s. Walker published October Journey
(1973), followed by two books: A Poetic Equation:
Conversations between Nikki Giovanni and Mar-
garet Walker (1974) and the definitive biography
Richard Wright: Daemonic Genius (1988). This Is
My Century: New and Collected Poems (1989), her
last volume of poetry, is a culmination of her col-
lective political vision. A few years before Walker
died, she published, with editorial assistance from
Maryemma Graham, How I Wrote Jubilee and
Other Essays on Life and Literature (1990). Her
final published work was On Being Female, Black,
and Free: Essays by Margaret Walker, 1932–1992
(1997).
Walker’s numerous awards and honors include
the Yale Younger Poets Award (1942), the Rosen-
wald Fellowship for Creative Writing (1944), Ford
Fellowship at Yale (1954), a University of Iowa
fellowship (1963), a Houghton Mifflin literature
fellowship (1966), a Fulbright Fellowship to Nor-
way (1971), senior fellowship from the National
Endowment for the Humanities (1972), doctor of
literature, Northwestern University (1974), doctor
of letters, Rust College (1974), doctor of fine arts,
Dennison University (1974), doctor of humane
letters, Morgan State University (1976), the Living
Legacy Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award of
the College Language Association (1992), the Life-
time Achievement Award for Excellence in the Arts
(1992), and the White House Award for Distin-
guished Senior Citizen. She was inducted into the
African American Literary Hall of Fame (October
1998), and Jackson, Mississippi, designated July 12
Margaret Walker Day.
Walker was one of the most formidable, gifted
literary voices of the 20th century, whose encour-
aging works gave hope to the masses. She bridged
the generations of the HARLEM RENAISSANCE of
the 1920s and the BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT of the
1960s and became one of America’s foremost po-
etic historians for a race. Indeed, Walker will be
remembered for her legacy, which spanned almost
an entire century. Walker died of breast cancer in
Chicago on November 30, 1998.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barksdale, Richard K. “Margaret Walker: Folk Ora-
ture and Historical Prophecy.” In Black American
Poets between Worlds, 1940–1960, edited by R.
Baxter Miller, Knoxville: University of Tennessee
Press, 1986.
Bell, Bernard W. The Afro-American Novel and Its
Tradition. Amherst: University of Massachusetts
Press, 1987.
Collier, Eugenia. “Fields Watered with Blood: Myth
and Ritual in the Poetry of Margaret Walker.”
In Black Women Writers (1950–1980): A Critical
Evaluation, edited by Mari Evans, Garden City,
N.Y.: Anchor Doubleday, 1984.Walker Alexander, Margaret Abigail 529