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This first biography of poet and writer Margaret Walker (1915-98) offers a comprehensive close reading of a pillar in American culture for a majority of the 20th century. Without defining herself as a radical or even a feminist, Walker followed the precepts of both. She promoted the idea of the artist of tradition and social change, a public intellectual and an institution builder. Among the first to recognize the impact of black women in literature, Walker became a chief architect of what many have called the new Black South Renaissance. Her art was influenced early by Langston Hughes, her political understanding of the world by Richard Wright. Walker expanded both into a comprehensive view on art and humanism, which became a national platform for the center she founded in Mississippi that now bears her name. The House Where My Soul Lives provides a full account of Walker's life and new interpretations of her writings before and after the publication of her most well-known poem in the 1930s in Chicago. The book rejects the widely held view of Walker as the "angry black woman" and emphasizes what contemporary American culture owes to her decades of foundational work in what we know today as Black Studies, Women's Studies, and the Public Humanities. She was fierce in her claim to be "black, female and free" which gave her the authority to challenge all hierarchies, no matter at what cost. Featuring 80 archival photos and documents and based on never before examined personal papers and interviews with those who knew Walker personally, this book is required reading for all readers of biographies of American writers.
List of contents
- An Introduction to Margaret Walker: The Woman We Thought We Knew
- Part I: "Southern Song," 1915-1932 (Birmingham and New Orleans)
- 1. In this Place where I was Born
- 2. A Preacher's Daughter
- 3. "The fire burning within"
- 4. "Get her out of the South"
- 5. Goodbye New Orleans
- Part II: Growing Out of Shadow, 1933-1938 (Chicago)
- 6."The house where my soul lives"
- 7. Brave New World
- 8. Colleagues and Comrades: South Side Writers
- 9. "Marriage is a green apple"
- 10. The Author of "For My People"
- Part III: No Enemies Save Myself 1938-1943 (Iowa, New Orleans, New York)
- 11. Dear Dick
- 12. "As low down as the blues let you be"
- 13. "Time is a mighty healer"
- 14. A Year of New Beginnings
- 15. October journey
- Part IV: Good Times in Difficult Years 1944-1963 (NC; Jackson, MS)
- 16. "Find somebody to love"
- 17. "Every child is a book I didn't write"
- 18. "The walls of my prison house"
- 19. "All my roots are gathered in one place"
- 20. "Turn loose and sink or swim"
- Part V: A Not So Quiet Radical, 1964-1975 (Iowa and Jackson, MS)
- 21. Jubilee: a Community of Memory
- 22. A Woman of Ideas
- 23. "To teach, to lead, to learn to change the world"
- 24. Midwife to a Movement
- Part VI: Unholy Wars 1976-1986 (Mississippi)
- 25. On Being Female, Black and Free
- 26. Fame and Infamy
- 27. Making Peace with my Soul: A Daemonic Genius
- 28. The Outlaw Spirit Prevails
- Part VII: This Is My Century 1987-1998 (Mississippi)
- 29. Politics and Possibilities
- 30. "Reaping the whirlwind"
- 31. "Call Me Cassandra"
- Index
Report
Maryemma Graham's long-anticipated biography of Margaret Walker, The House Where My Soul Lives, is a masterpiece of scholarship and writing, exploring the complicated contours of Walker's personal and professional life with a grace that is both accessible and enthralling...The measure of success of any biography and work of history should be how its lessons inform who we are and teach us how to build a better world around us. In this regard, Maryemma Graham has written her magnum opus. Robert Luckett, Margaret Walker Center Professor, Department of History Jackson State University.
