ENTRY

Wyatt Tee Walker (1929–2018)

SUMMARY

Wyatt Tee Walker was a civil rights activist, author, and religious leader. After earning his master of divinity degree from Virginia Union University in 1953, Walker became the pastor of Gillfield Baptist Church in Petersburg. During the 1950s, he served as the president of the Petersburg branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was the state director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in Virginia, and founded the Petersburg Improvement Association. In 1960 he was appointed chief of staff to Martin Luther King Jr. and served as the first full-time executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Walker was instrumental in the fund-raising campaigns of the SCLC early in the 1960s and he helped formulate and analyze various protest strategies. He left the SCLC in 1964 and went on to serve as the pastor of Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem, New York, for thirty-seven years. Following his retirement in 2004, he returned to Virginia, where he died in 2018.

Early Years

Virginia Union University

Walker was born on August 16, 1929, in Brockton, Massachusetts, the tenth of eleven children, to Pastor John Wise Walker and Maude Pinn Walker. When he was still a baby, his family moved to Merchantville, New Jersey, where he received his primary and secondary education, and where, at nine years old, he and his siblings refused to be turned away from a segregated movie theater. After graduating with a bachelor of science degree in chemistry and physics from Virginia Union University in Richmond in 1950, he earned his master of divinity degree in 1953 from Virginia Union University. While in the seminary, Walker met Martin Luther King Jr. at an interseminary meeting while King was a student at Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, Pennsylvania.

Petersburg, SCLC, and the Civil Rights Movement

Douglas Southall Freeman in His Study

Walker served as the pastor of Gillfield Baptist Church in Petersburg from 1953 until 1959. As such, he stood alongside King as one of a group of younger, more liberal, more activist ministers who became important leaders of the civil rights movement. Walker became the leader of several civil rights organizations: he was president of the local chapter of the NAACP and state director of CORE, and he founded the Petersburg Improvement Association, a group that was modeled after King’s Montgomery Improvement Association. The Petersburg Improvement Association organized protests against several of the city’s segregated facilities. In fact, Walker was arrested the first of his seventeen times in 1958 when he led his wife, children, and a few other preachers and students to the all-white Petersburg Public Library. According to the historian Taylor Branch, “Walker asked the librarian to give him the first volume of Douglas Southall Freeman‘s biography of Robert E. Lee” because it amused Walker “to think that white southerners would arrest him for trying to read about their most cherished hero.” He led the Petersburg Improvement Association in marches in Richmond protesting the closing of the schools in 1958, and he organized workshops in Norfolk to teach nonviolent strategies.

Bomb-Damaged House in Birmingham

As a result of the success of the Petersburg Improvement Association, King appointed Walker in 1958 to the board of the newly founded SCLC, where Walker’s work led to the establishment of the state chapter in Virginia. In 1960, Walker became the first full-time executive director of SCLC. He brought financial stability and organizational structure to the group. He also was the architect of that organization’s “Project C” protest strategy in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963—a movement of marches, sit-ins, and boycotts of downtown merchants—which drew national and federal attention, and whose results led to King’s famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In 1964 Walker left his post at the SCLC and started work as a marketing specialist for the Negro Heritage Library, of which he became president in 1966. Part of the library’s mission was to persuade schools to include the perspectives and experiences of African Americans in their curricula. In 1967, at King’s behest, Walker became the interim pastor of Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem, New York. There, on March 24, 1968, King served as the guest preacher at Walker’s installation service. Eleven days later, King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

Later Years

Wyatt Tee Walker at Virginia Union University

In 1975 Walker earned his doctorate in African American studies with a specialization in music from Colgate Rochester Divinity School in Rochester, New York, and throughout the 1970s he served as New York governor Nelson Rockefeller’s urban affairs specialist. In 1978 Walker organized the International Freedom Mobilization to protest apartheid in South Africa. In 1979, Walker published the first of his many books, “Somebody’s Calling My Name”: Black Sacred Music and Social Change, in which he argued that “what Black people are singing religiously will provide a clue as to what is happening to them sociologically.”

After a period of illness that resulted in a major stroke in January 2003, Walker resigned as senior pastor of Canaan Baptist Church of Christ after thirty-seven years. In 2004 he was officially installed as Pastor Emeritus. On January 18, 2009, he was one of twenty-five honorees who received the “Keepers of the Flame” award at the African American Church Inaugural Ball, celebrating the inauguration of United States president Barack Obama. Walker died at an assisted-living facility in Chester on January 23, 2018.

Major Works

  • “Somebody’s Calling My Name”: Black Sacred Music and Social Change (1979)
  • The Soul of Black Worship: A Trilogy—Preaching, Praying, Singing (1984)
  • Road to Damascus: A Journey of Faith (1985)
  • Spirits That Dwell Deep in the Woods: The Prayer and Praise Hymns of the Black Religious Experience (1987–1991)
  • Gospel in the Land of the Rising Sun (1991)
  • The Harvard Paper: The African-American Church and Economic Development (1994)
  • Soweto Diary: The Free Elections in South Africa: Featuring the Original Poetry of Nathan Wright, Jr. (1994)
  • A Prophet from Harlem Speaks: Sermons & Essays (1997)
  • Race, Justice & Culture: Pre-Millennium Essays (1998)
  • Millennium End Papers: The Walker File ’98–’99 (2000)
  • My Stroke of Grace: A Testament of Faith Renewal (2002)

MAP
TIMELINE
August 16, 1929
Wyatt Tee Walker is born in Brockton, Massachusetts.
1950
Wyatt Tee Walker graduates magna cum laude with a bachelor of science in chemistry and physics from Virginia Union University in Richmond.
December 24, 1950
Wyatt Tee Walker marries Theresa Ann Edwards. They will have four children.
1953
Wyatt Tee Walker earns his master of divinity degree from Virginia Union University in Richmond and then moves to Petersburg where he becomes pastor of Gillfield Baptist Church.
1958
Martin Luther King Jr. appoints Wyatt Tee Walker to the board of the newly founded Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
1960
Wyatt Tee Walker is appointed chief of staff to Martin Luther King Jr. and serves as the first full-time executive director of Atlanta's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He moves from Petersburg to Atlanta, Georgia.
May 25, 1961
Wyatt Tee Walker is arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, during a Freedom Riders' protest.
1964
Wyatt Tee Walker leaves his post at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and starts work as a marketing specialist for the Negro Heritage Library. He becomes president in 1966.
September 1, 1967
Wyatt Tee Walker becomes the interim pastor of Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem, New York.
March 24, 1968
Martin Luther King Jr. is the guest preacher at Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem, New York, at Wyatt Tee Walker's official installation as pastor. Eleven days later, King is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
1975
Wyatt Tee Walker earns his doctorate in African American studies with a specialization in music from Colgate Rochester Divinity School in Rochester, New York.
1978
Wyatt Tee Walker organizes the International Freedom Mobilization to protest apartheid in South Africa.
1979
Wyatt Tee Walker publishes his first of many books, "Somebody's Calling My Name": Black Sacred Music and Social Change.
January 18, 2009
Wyatt Tee Walker is one of twenty-five honorees who receive the "Keepers of the Flame" award at the African American Church Inaugural Ball, celebrating the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
January 23, 2018
Wyatt Tee Walker dies at an assisted-living facility in Chester.
FURTHER READING
  • Houck, Davis W., and David E. Dixon, eds. Rhetoric, Religion and the Civil Rights Movement: 1954–1965. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2006.
  • Walker, Wyatt Tee. “Somebody’s Calling My Name”: Black Sacred Music and Social Change. Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson Press: 1979.
CITE THIS ENTRY
APA Citation:
Lawing, Charlie. Wyatt Tee Walker (1929–2018). (2020, December 07). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/walker-wyatt-tee-1929-2018.
MLA Citation:
Lawing, Charlie. "Wyatt Tee Walker (1929–2018)" Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 06 Dec. 2023
Last updated: 2021, December 22
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