Song of My Life

Continuing with what seems to have become a minor theme on my blog this month, this is a short, but fact-filled and moving biography of an under-appreciated and not widely known African-American.

Margaret Walker was a poet and writer who had to struggle throughout her life in the USA to get herself an education, to be accepted, and to pursue her career and her dreams. Even when she had earned herself a doctorate and begun her writing and teaching career at a university she still had to deal with racism which was only exacerbated by the fact that not only was she a black person in a white person's world, she was also a woman in a man's world.

As if this wasn't bad enough, when Alex Haley published his run-away best-selling book Roots, and Walker sued him for plagiarism, citing instance after instance of examples where she argued that he had lifted material from her writing (her 1966 novel Jubilee), including the name "Chicken George", she lost the case, although 1978, Harold Courlanderwho filed a similar suit, won his.

As this biography makes disturbingly clear, Walker Born in Birmingham, Alabama, navigated a cash-strapped and racism plagued childhood, moving homes several times as her father, a Methodist minister, tried to stay employed. She attended school and college in New Orleans still struggling to make ends meet. In 1935, she got a BA at Northwestern University, following it with a master's from the University of Iowa (in creative writing) in 1942. The following year she married Firnist Alexander, had four children with him, and remained married to this war veteran until his death.

She was a professor of literature for thirty years at what's now known as Jackson State University, and continued to write - and win accolades - throughout her life. Her works include an award-winning poetry collection titled For My People, and Jubilee, a remarkable novel about slavery, before, during, and after the Civil War and based upon the life of her own great-grandmother.

This biography tells her story - a story that needs to be told - and tells it well. It will make you feel uncomfortable, but it will make you feel triumphant as you read through to the success and praise which Margaret Walker earned after her struggle, throughout which she maintained her poise and equanimity. Her success inspired a whole generation of black writers to take up her baton and continue moving forwards. I recommend this book.

Margaret Walker wrote poetry and a great novel titled Jubilee. The novel, Jubilee, is based on the life of Margaret Walker's great grandmother. Margaret Walker led a fascinating life as she made her way to Iowa and other places completing her education. She lived in Mississippi. At one point, she lived across the street from Medgar Evers. She was out of town on the night he was gunned down by an assassin's bullet. Carolyn J. Brown writes about Margaret Walker with great admiration. Margaret Walker had a never give up spirit, a fighting spirit. She knew what she wanted and had the bravery to go after what she wanted. After meeting Langston Hughes for the first time, she asks him to read her poetry. He took her work and read it. When she meets him at another reading affair, she asks him to read her work again. This time he turns her down. I admired her ability to ask such an important man to read her work. She wasn't a shrinking wall flower.

It was very interesting to read about Walker's feelings about Alex Haley. Some time after Roots was published,, Margaret Walker criticized him and sued Alex Haley for taking pieces from her work, Jubilee, and using those pieces in Roots. She didn't whisper about it. She took Alex Haley to court.

Then, there is her fight about where her important manuscripts should go after her death. People automatically concluded she would choose the Library of Congress. Margaret Walker said a resounding no, not there. She felt her manuscripts would go unused in the Library of Congress ending up in a dusty drawer in a dark cellar. In the same place where they placed information about Native Americans. She wanted Black students to be able to use her papers for research. The continued watering of the Black Culture, keeping it alive and growing, were very important to her. Her manuscripts and other papers are now housed in Mississippi easily accessible to students and researchers and those curious about her life.

Margaret Mitchell died because of cancer. Her name will never die. There is all her poetry, letters and the book, Jubilee. I am grateful for the photographs placed in the book by Carolyn J. Brown. I especially liked the photo of Margaret Walker's desk, her typewriter and a favorite hat she wore. All that I know about Margaret Walker came from Song Of My Life. Thank you for writing it and not omitting information about segregation and other hard times faced by American Black people who are our literary stars today.http://www.upress.state.ms.us/books/1712 My thanks to NetGalley for a courtesy copy.