Mrs. Maggie Lena Walker: A Woman for All Seasons

By Elvatrice Parker Belsches
Special to the New Journal and Guide

In the pantheon of outstanding Black American leaders of the early 20th century, several loomed large: Booker T. Washington, Mary McLeod Bethune, Mary Church Terrell, Dr. W.E.B. DuBois and numerous others. However, no treatise examining exceptional Black leaders of this era is complete without the inclusion of Mrs. Maggie Lena Walker.

Walker was born to Black cook Elizabeth Draper in 1864, during the height of the Civil War, on the estate of staunch Richmond, Virginia Unionists, The Van Lews. Although it is unclear if Maggie Walker’s mother was free or enslaved at the time of her birth, her father was Eccles Cuthbert, a white journalist and native of Ireland.

Walker’s mother eventually married William Mitchell, a Black hotel worker who died under suspicious circumstances while Walker was a child, thrusting the family into dire circumstances. Walker assisted her mother with laundering the clothes of others, while attending the public schools for Blacks in Richmond.

Walker joined the First African Baptist Church during her youth, a church that had officially branched off from the integrated First Baptist Church in 1841.

Walker graduated from The Richmond Colored Normal and High, a school organized under the auspices of the Freedmen’s Bureau to train Black students to become educators. Graduates of Richmond Colored Normal, as it was most commonly known, endured a rigorous course of studies. Walker’s graduating class of 1883 would mount a protest over the fact that graduates of the white high school in Richmond would typically hold their graduation exercises in the Richmond Theatre, whereas the graduation exercises of Richmond Colored Normal were commonly conducted at The First African Baptist Church. Walker and her classmates threatened to strike and subsequently, the exercises were held at the school. She would teach for several years before marrying Armstead Walker, Jr., a contractor.

Maggie Walker joined the Independent Order of Saint Luke as a teenager. This benevolent organization, which provided sick and death benefits, was founded in 1867 by Mary Prout and others in Baltimore, Maryland. It would prove pivotal in the development of Walker as a nationally-known organization leader.

By 1899, Walker had ascended to the office of the Right Worthy Grand Secretary of the Independent Order of St. Luke. She eventually presided over an organization that grew to reportedly over 60,000 members in over twenty states. She was later bestowed the title of Right Worthy Grand Secretary-Treasurer of the organization.

Walker championed education, self-help and entrepreneurship. In 1901 she put forth the need for the Order to start an emporium, a newspaper and a bank. She would serve as the managing editor of the St. Luke Herald Newspaper, founded in 1902 and in 1903, Walker became the first known Black woman to found and become president of a chartered bank in America, with the opening of the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank in Richmond, Virginia.

As a champion of civil rights, Walker didn’t sit idly by when the Virginia Passenger and Power Company implemented its segregated street car policies granting the conductors the power to move Black passengers.

Along with the other Black leaders such as John Mitchell, riders were urged to boycott the streetcars. The Virginia Passenger and Power Company would later go into receivership.

As the managing editor of the St. Luke Herald newspaper, Walker championed the hiring of Black teachers at her alma mater, Richmond Colored Normal. At the founding of the local chapter of what would become the Richmond Urban League and the Richmond Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Walker was a charter member of each organization.

Walker also was a leader in the National Council of Negro Women and a founding member of the state and local affiliates of the organization. The state and local affiliates played a major role in the Negro Reformatory Movement and public health initiatives. With the passage of the 19th Amendment, granting woman the right to vote, Walker teamed with other Black leaders to educate Black women on their new rights and responsibilities.

She was on the Board of Trustees for Nannie Helen Burroughs Training School for Women and Girls, and she also served as a trustee for Hartshorn Memorial College for Women, which merged with Virginia Union University in 1932. Among her notable friends and leaders who visited her at her home in Jackson Ward were Mary McLeod Bethune, Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, Robert R. Moton, and countless others. In 1925 Virginia Union University conferred upon Mrs. Walker an honorary Master of Science degree.

Mrs. Walker was truly a woman for all ages.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Ms. Belsches will be presenting on her research and information on Maggie L. Walker on July 13, at the Richmond Public Library at 2 p.m.

Elvatrice Parker Belsches was the recipient of the Maggie L. Walker Heritage Award in 2010 for her verification of an earlier birth year for Maggie L. Walker and her creation of the Historic Jackson Ward Podcast Tour by the National Park Service.