| 1915 |
Born in
Birmingham, Alabama, the first of four children to
Reverend Sigismund Constantine |
|
Walker, a
Methodist minister originally from Jamaica, and
Marian Dozier,
a musician and |
|
teacher;
Grandmother Elvira Ware Dozier moves to
Birmingham to live with family and care |
|
for her first
grandchild. |
|
|
| 1932 |
Publishes first
essay, “What Is to become of Us” in Our Youth,
a New Orleans magazine; |
|
meets James Weldon
Johnson, Marian Anderson, and Langston Hughes; enrolls
in |
|
Northwestern
University (NU) as junior. |
|
|
| 1935 |
Drafts first 300
pages of Jubilee for creative writing class;
graduates from NU with
B.A. in |
|
English in June. |
| 1936 |
Begins work with
the Federal Writers’ Project in Chicago with Frank Yerby,
Gwendolyn |
|
Brooks, and
Richard Wright. |
|
|
| 1937 |
Publishes “For
My People” in Poetry in October; Southside
Writers group disbands. |
|
|
| 1940 |
Graduates from
Iowa with M.A. in creative writing; publishes short story
in Anvil and |
|
CreativeWriting;
returns to New Orleans for eighteen months; suffers
depression and |
|
burn-out. |
|
|
| 1941 |
“For My
People” published in Negro Caravan. |
|
|
| 1942 |
Wins Yale Younger
Poet Award for poetry collection
For My People,
subsequently |
|
published by Yale
University Press.
|
| 1943 |
Marries Firnist
James Alexander; moves to High Point, N.C.; first of four
children born. |
|
|
| 1949 |
Becomes English
professor at Jackson State University. |
|
|
| 1965 |
Receives Ph.D. in
English from Iowa. |
|
|
| 1966 |
Jubilee
is
published 25 September; wins Houghton Mifflin literary
award, Mable Carney |
|
Student National
Education Association plaque for scholar-teacher of the
year, and Alpha |
|
Kappa Alpha
Sorority Citation for Advancement of Knowledge;
is honored at New York |
|
production
A Hand
Is on the Gate; meets Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Cicely Tyson,
Moses |
|
Gunn, Roscoe
Brown, James Earl Jones, and
Gloria Foster (who performs Walker’s |
|
poetry); attends
party at home of Langston Hughes. |
|
|
| 1968 |
Establishes
Institute for the Study of History, Life, and Culture of
Black people at Jackson |
|
State University,
now the Margaret Walker Alexander National Research
Center. Retires |
|
from teaching at
Jackson State University. |
|
|
| 1970 |
Prophets for a
New Day published by Third World Press, marking a
shift from mainstream |
|
publishers;
publishes “The Humanistic Tradition of Afro-American
Literature”; massacre |
|
at Jackson State
inspires poem; serves as witness before President’s
Commission on Campus |
|
Unrest. |
|
|
| 1972 |
Receives National
Endowment for the Humanities senior fellowship for
independent study; |
|
conducts seminar at Atlanta’s Institute of the Black
World;
How I Wrote Jubilee
later
|
|
published as monograph by Third
World Press; speaks
at centennial of Paul Lawrence
|
|
Dunbar’s
birth in Dayton
and conceives idea for festival of black women writers to honor |
|
Phyllis Wheatley;
delivers speech
“Agenda for Action: Black Arts and Letters” at Black
|
|
Academy Conference to Assess the State of Arts and Letters in the United States,
sponsored |
|
by Johnson
Publishing Company, Chicago; writes “humanities with a
Black Focus: A Black
|
|
Paradigm” distributed by the Institute for Services to
education in Curriculum Changes in
|
|
Black
Colleges
III, published by U.S. Department of Education;
delivers speech |
|
commemorating JSU massacre.
|
| 1973 |
October journey published by broadside press; hosts Phyllis
Wheatley (bicentennial) Poetry |
|
Festival at JSU in October; gathering
of black women helps inaugurate the black women’s |
|
literary renaissance;
appears before Federal Communications Commission regarding racial |
|
discrimination
in media;
participates in Library of Congress conference on Teaching
Creative
|
|
Writing;
presents “The Writer and Her Craft.”
|
| 1974
|
Poetic Equation: Conversations with Nikki Giovanni and
Margaret Walker published
|
|
by Howard University Press; hospitalized for
diabetes; outlines sequel to Jubilee in hospital;
|
|
goes on speaking tour in Northeast;
receives honorary degrees from Denison University, |
|
Northwestern
University,
Rust College (Mississippi).
|
| 1977 |
Files suit against Alex Haley for plagiarism; judge rules in
favor of Haley;
Conference on |
|
Africa
and African Affairs sponsored by Black
Studies Institute.
|
| 1980 |
Publishes essay “On Being Female, Black, and Free”;
“Mississippi and the Nation” speech |
|
given at Governor’s Inaugural Symposium;
“Margaret Walker Alexander Day” proclaimed |
|
by Mississippi Governor William
Winter, 12 July; husband Alex dies in November; Siggy |
|
(son)
and family move
in with Walker; conducts lengthy interview with Claudia Tate for book |
|
Black
Women Writers.
|
| 1982 |
Receives
W.E.B. DuBois award from Association of Social and
Behavioral Scientists; |
|
delivers lecture
“Education and the Seminal
Mind”; completes new book of poetry; reads
|
|
excerpts to overflow crowd at Lincoln
University (Pennsylvania).
|
| 1988 |
Richard Wright: Daemonic Genius published after long
battle with Wright’s widow; |
|
celebration
held at Old Capital Museum, Jackson;
serves as delegate from Fourth District |
|
to National Democratic Convention in
Atlanta; branch of Hinds County library named in her |
|
honor.
|
| 1989 |
This Is My Country: New and Collected Poems published;
Institute at Jackson State |
|
becomes Margaret Walker Alexander National Research
Center for the Study of the |
|
Twentieth-Century
African American, introduced
into legislation as HR 3252; receives |
|
three-year
fellowship from Lyndhurst
Foundation (1989-
1992); goes on East Coast and |
|
West Coast
book promotion/lecture tour; attends Federal Writers Project Reunion in |
|
Chicago; opening of “I
Dream a World Exhibition (Brian Lanker) featuring Walker and other |
|
women
at Corcoran
Gallery; appears
on CBS “Nightwatch” with Charlie Rose.
|
| 1990 |
Receives Living legend Award for Literature from National
Black Arts Festival, Atlanta; |
|
How I Wrote Jubilee and Other Essays on Life and Literature published by
Feminist |
|
Press;
U.S. Court of Appeals
rules in favor of Walker’s use of Wright’s letters in biography |
|
and against the Richard Wright estate;
unveils historic marker at Richard Wright’s home site
|
|
for Natchez Literary
Festival.
|
| 1992 |
Celebrates seventy-fifth birthday in gala event at home;
interviewed by Jack Switzer for |
|
national airing of “Open Air” (Mississippi
Educational TV); fiftieth
anniversary edition of For
|
|
My People issued by
Limited Editions and celebrated
at Limited Editions Club, New York,
|
|
18 September;
receives
[Kirk Fordice’s] Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, |
|
lifetime
Achievement Award from the College Language Association, Golden Soror
Award |
|
from
AKA Sorority, and together with Ralph Ellison, a tribute from Modern
Language |
|
Association; participates in five-day conference on “Black Women
Writers and Magic
|
|
Realism” sponsored by MWA National Research Center;
Roland Freeman publishes
For My
People: A Tribute, |
|
a book of
photographs in honor of Walker;
is hospitalized for minor |
|
stroke.
|
| 1993
|
Receives National Book Award for Lifetime Achievement; accepts
honorary
degree from
|
|
Spelman College (Atlanta); delivers keynote
address “Discovering Our Connections: Race,
|
|
Gender, and the Law” at Washington
College of Law,
published in American University
|
|
Journal of Gender and
Law.
|
| 1995
|
Margaret Walker Alexander National
Research Center for the Study of Twentieth-Century
|
|
African Americans hosts Margaret Walker Alexander
Week 27 November-2 December; |
|
listed by
Ebony magazine as one of
“Fifty Most Important Women in the Past Fifty Years”; |
|
publishes
“Whose ‘Boy’ Is This?” on Clarence Thomas in African American Women Speak
|
|
Out (Geneva
Smitherman,
ed.); completed first draft of autobiography.
|
| 1997 |
On Being Female, Black and Free published by
University of Tennessee; reads
poetry at |
|
Atlanta Arts Festival in July; Margaret Walker
Alexander Research
Center moves into
|
|
remodeled
Ayers Hall at JSU.
|
| 1998
|
Honored at Zora Neale Hurston International Festival,
Eatonville, Florida, in January; reads |
|
poetry and is honored at George Moses Horton
Society at UNC in April; is diagnosed with |
|
cancer in June and undergoes
radiation treatment, decides
against surgery; receives major
|
|
Arts Achievement award in
Jackson, Mississippi, in July; inducted into eh African American |
|
Literary
Hall of
Fame at the Gwendolyn Brooks Writers Conference in October; dies in |
|
Chicago at home of
oldest daughter, 30 November; funeral held in Jackson
on 4
December. |
| |
|
| |
Maryemma
Graham.
Conversations
with Margaret Walker (2002) |
