Maggie Lena Walker

Maggie Lena Walker was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1864, to Elizabeth Draper and Eccles Cuthbert. Maggie was born in Elizabeth Van Lew’s mansion, where her mother, a former slave, worked as a maid. Van Lew was considered the most successful federal spy during the Civil War, helping the Union by delivering valuable intelligence and aiding prisoners of war. Maggie’s father Cuthbert, an Irish journalist, never married Draper, partly because interracial marriages were illegal in Virginia until 1967. 

[Courtesy of Library of Congress] 

Richmond was the capital of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. Walker was born into a war-torn city and a particularly hostile, post-war environment toward African Americans. 

[Courtesy of Kickstarter]

At age fourteen, Walker joined the local Good Idea Council #16 of the African American fraternal society that later became the Independent Order of the Sons and Daughters of St. Luke. She also joined the First Baptist Church and was inspired by the sense of community and uplift the church represented. She remained religious her entire life.

[Courtesy of National Park Service]

Walker was appointed secretary of the council at age sixteen, successfully juggling this responsibility with schoolwork and home life. She had an insider’s view of how important St. Luke was to Richmond’s Black community, as members paid monthly dues and received relief in the form of food, clothing, funeral services, and counseling for employment.

[Courtesy of National Park Service]

Walker graduated from a segregated, Black teacher training school, the Colored Normal School. Her class boycotted the separate graduation ceremonies required between the white and Black schools — the white schools traditionally held the ceremony in Richmond theaters while the Black schools were relegated to church facilities. In protest, they held their graduation in the Normal School assembly room. This is considered one of  the first school strikes of African Americans in the United States. 

[Courtesy of Encyclopedia of Virginia]

Walker’s three-year teaching career ended when she married Armstead Walker Jr., a prominent Black contractor. Married women were legally barred from teaching in Virginia, as they were expected to be homemakers.

[Caption: Courtesy of National Park Service]

Through its Plessy v. Ferguson decision, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized racial segregation, ushering in a new era of racism and racial terror against African Americans. 

[Caption: Courtesy of New York Public Library] 

Walker founded a weekly newspaper, the St. Luke Herald, as an outlet for the Order’s achievements and goals. As managing editor, she pushed for the publication of stories shedding light on segregation, lynchings, and the racial persecution that persisted for African Americans after the Civil War.

[Courtesy of  National Park Service]

Walker became the country’s first African American female bank president when she founded the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank. The bank started with $9,430 in deposits gathered from members of the Order.

[Courtesy of National Park Service]

The Virginia Passenger & Power Company enforced the segregated streetcar law. This was one of myriad examples of Jim Crow laws discriminating against African Americans enacted throughout the southern United States.

[Courtesy of Virginia State Library]

Walker bought a two-story house at 110 1/2 East Leigh Street, located at Jackson Ward, the center of African American business and social life of the time. Walker hosted several prominent leaders including Booker T. Washington, founder of Tuskegee Institute; Janie Porter Barrett, founder of the Industrial School of Colored Girls; and Mary McCleod Bethune, founder of Bethune Cookman College.

Located on Richmond’s main shopping street, Walker opened the St. Luke Emporium, a department store aiming to provide affordable, high-quality goods. She hired Black women to work in the Emporium (which featured only brown-skinned mannequins) to help them earn a living and acquire a business education.

[Courtesy of  National Park Service]

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded to advance justice for African Americans, and Walker became a staunch supporter. That same year, the Virginia’s Equal Suffrage League was founded by three white suffragettes. Waker used her platform as a prominent community figure to encourage African American women to join the fight for suffrage. 

[Courtesy of Library of Congress]

Tragedy struck the Walker family when Russell, her eldest son, accidentally killed his father. The Walkers had experienced break-ins in their household, causing them to arm themselves for safety. On the evening of June 19, Russell heard noises on the roof and mistook his father for an intruder and shot him. Russell was put on trial for murder, and after five months was found not guilty. 

[Courtesy of Virginia State Library]

Walker’s health declined after developing diabetes. She suffered from paralysis, and was confined to a wheelchair in the last years of her life. Yet this did not slow down her activism.   

[Courtesy of National Park Service]

To keep her bank alive, Walker merged the St. Luke bank with another Black-owned bank, leading to the creation of the new Consolidated Bank and Trust, which opened with resources of $864,000. In operation until 2005, it was the longest operating Black bank in the country. 

[Courtesy of The Richmond Times Dispatch]

[Courtesy of National Park Service]

Celebrating Maggie Lena Walker’s 153rd birthday, Richmond, Virginia dedicated a statute of Walker to honor her achievements.