Margaret Walker marker added to the Mississippi Writer’s Trail

The Mississippi Writer’s Trail unveiled its second historic marker Sunday in honor of novelist, poet and teacher Margaret Walker.

The marker stands in front of Jackson State University’s Ayers Hall, location of the Margaret Walker Center.

Margaret Walker (1915 to 1998) founded the center, originally called the Institute for the Study of the History, Life, and Culture of Black People, in 1968. “The Center seeks to honor (Walker’s) academic and artistic legacy through its archival collections, exhibits and public programs,” according to the JSU website. Walker was a professor at JSU from 1949 to 1979.

“She spent some 30 odd years working, telling the story and lifting up people through her voice,” Mississippi Arts Commission executive director Malcolm White told WLBT. “And that’s really important because what we’re doing is not so much going around and creating a trail, as we’re going around and explaining a history.”

Walker’s most famous works include her 1942 poem and poetry collection “For My People,” https://poets.org/poem/my-people for which she won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition making her the first black woman to receive a national writing prize. Her only novel, “Jubilee,” was published in 1966. The book is the story of a slave family during and after the Civil War, and is based on her great-grandmother’s life.

The Mississippi Writers Trail is an initiative of the Mississippi Arts Commission, in partnership with the Community Foundation for Mississippi, Mississippi Book Festival, Mississippi Humanities Council, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Mississippi Library Commission and Visit Mississippi.

Author Eudora Welty in 1962. (Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

The Mississippi Writers Trail began with the unveiling of two prototype markers at a ceremony during opening of the 2018 Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson. The prototypes commemorated author Eudora Welty and novelist Jesmyn Ward, representing the Trail’s mission to honor Mississippians’ past and present contributions to the literary world.

Welty’s permanent marker was unveiled in September, 2018. Miss Ward’s marker unveiling has not been announced.

Mississippi’s wealth of famous writers who were born and/or worked in the state includes Tennessee Williams, Percy Walker, Richard Wright and William Faulkner, among many others.