When A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats: Resource Recommendation 6

For My People: The Margaret Walker Center, an article by Robert E. Luckett, Jr., was quite an inspiring story of the transformation of a local hero into a national hero and icon. The life and works of this cultural icon inspired multiple authors of great fame themselves, including Toni Morrison and Alex Haley. Walker’s novel Jubilee served as a major source of inspiration for both of these authors’ works. Walker has dedicated the last thirty years of her life to educating her community and the blossoming of a younger generation of African-American artists and authors. Among those she worked with was W.E.B Du Bois, and Walker was dedicated to answering those who would ask the questions, ‘Should we talk about slavery,’ and ‘how much should the younger generations know about the darker aspects of the African-American experience,’ with the firm answers of ‘Yes’ and ‘As much as possible.’ Walker did not conform her writings to have idealized and heroic figures that elevated African-Americans. Her realistic portrayal of the world and the dangers afoot in her time were enough to elevate her successors. Walker thought about the world the way her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother did: “That the world is not the worst place in the world to be. That it’s what you make it and, if you look at it through dark colored glasses, it’s going to be a dark place to see.’’ Her service in promoting newer generations of African-American artistry and authorship through her clear expression of the world and her experiences has been forever memorialized by a center bearing her name.

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