Ep 45 Dr. Maryemma Graham - The Life of Margaret Walker Alexander

Our guest this week is Dr. Mary Emma Graham, who's written a thorough, detailed and outstanding biography on the life of Margaret Walker, titled, The House Where My Soul Lives. 

Margaret Walker, an award-winning poet, writer, and institution builder, is brought back into the spotlight in the first comprehensive biography of her life. Though she did not label herself as a radical or feminist, Walker embodied the role of a traditional artist and catalyst for societal transformation. She was a prominent figure in American culture throughout the 20th century.

Dr. Maryemma Graham, a native of Augusta, Georgia, is University Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Kansas and Founding Director of the History of Black-Writing (HBW), which she established at the University of Mississippi in 1983.  HBW, which has been at the forefront of innovation and change in African American literary history,  has led national and international initiatives to promote research, teaching, and public engagement with Black literary studies with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Ford, and Mellon Foundations.

Professor Graham’s 12 books have helped to redefine the field, especially: The Cambridge Companion to the African American Novel and, with Jerry W. Ward, The Cambridge History of African American Literature. On the occasion of the History of Black Writing’s 40th anniversary, and Professor Graham’s retirement from teaching to writing full-time, a cross-generational panel of distinguished scholars gathered at the Modern Language Association’s 2023 conference to celebrate the project’s accomplishments, ongoing significance, and new ventures in archiving, programming, and literary research and expanding the community of digital scholars and practitioners.  Professor Graham  lives in Lawrence, Kansas and is  at work on two new books. www.grahamworks.net. 

 

Highlights from the episode:

• Who is Margaret Walker, where she grew up and how that environment shaped her life
• The South Side Writers Group and the role Margaret Walker played
• What is a protest novel and why is it important?
• How Walkers’s poem “For My People” is a journey through history
• The three strikes that made Margeret Walker an outlier in the South
• Why Margaret Walker did not label herself as a feminism?
• What is a race woman and how does that drive Margaret’s work at Jackson State?
• Margaret Walker’s return to school and the need for black studies
• How does the work at Jackson State come together with Margaret Walker’s work?
• The importance of bringing back the lost voices of the lost voices

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