A Brief Biography: Maggie Lena Walker (1864-1934)
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Maggie Lena Draper was born in 1864 to Elizabeth Draper, a formerly enslaved woman, in Richmond, Virginia, and raised by her mother and step-father. The family was left without a source of income in 1876 when Maggie’s stepfather, William Mitchell, was killed, prompting Maggie’s mother to take work as a washerwoman. Young Maggie helped the family by caring for her younger brother and collecting and delivering laundry for her mother while attending Richmond public schools. After graduation, Maggie was a school teacher for three years until she married Armstead Walker, Jr., in 1886.
While attending school, teenage Maggie had joined the Independent Order of Saint Luke, a mutual benefit society for African Americans that provided insurance, promoted economic development, and engaged in political activities. As an adult, Maggie Walker’s active engagement in the Order caught the attention of many, fueling her rise through the ranks at St. Luke’s until she became the Right Worthy Grand Secretary in 1899, the Order’s chief executive role. She served as St. Luke’s chief executive for 35 years.
Maggie Walker was a feminist, advocating entrepreneurship as the avenue for African American women to take economic control of their lives.
“Let woman choose her own vocation, just as a man does his. Let her go into business, let her make money, let her become independent, if possible, of man: let her marry, bringing into the partnership, if not money, a trade or business – something besides the mere clothes on her body.” (Walker, 1912, in Prieto and Phipps, 2019, p. 125)
Importantly, this economic control was not to be found in White homes performing domestic labor but in businesses and jobs other than domestic service.
Mrs. Walker was also an advocate of economic cooperation across the African American community. She sought to leverage the economic power of Black Americans to “kill the lion of prejudice” (Walker, 1906, in Prieto and Phipps, 2019, p. 126) and for the economic betterment of all people of African descent.
“Let us put our moneys together; let us use our moneys; let us put our moneys at usury among ourselves, and realize the benefit ourselves.” (Walker, 1901, in Prieto and Phipps, 2019, p. 127)
These views and values prompted Mrs. Walker to lead St. Luke’s in creating the Saint Luke Herald, a newspaper to facilitate communication between the Order and the community. In 1903 the Saint Luke Penny Saving Bank was opened with Mrs. Walker becoming the first African American woman to serve as a bank president in the United States. In 1905 the Order opened the first department store in Richmond owned and operated by African Americans: The Saint Luke Emporium. All of these institutions (the Order, bank, and department store) employed African Americans, many of whom were women, providing job skills outside of domestic service and creating a path for economic empowerment. The bank also helped seed and develop the first generation of Black homeowners in Richmond.
As an activist, Mrs. Walker worked closely with the African American leaders of her day, including W.E.B DuBois, Booker T. Washington, Nannie Helen Burroughs, and Mary McLeod Bethune. She led a two-year boycott by African Americans of the Richmond trolley system, leading to the company’s bankruptcy, organized the Richmond chapter of the NAACP, and was a member of the national NAACP board of directors. And when the 19th Amendment was passed, Mrs. Walker ran for Richmond superintendent of public schools.
Maggie Lena Walker was a social entrepreneur whose message of equality, egalitarianism, collective cooperation, and economic empowerment impacted the lives of Americans in Richmond and across the country.
Sources:
Image: Caldwell, A. B. History of the American Negro and his institutions, Volume 5, Virginia Edition. Atlanta, A. B. Caldwell. 1921. Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Maggie Walker NPS (2017). Carry on: the life and legacy of Maggie Lena Walker [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/QR3CexPZXEk
Crystal Marie Moten (2020, February 27). Pennies and nickels add up to success: Maggie Lena Walker. National Museum of American History, Behring Center. https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/maggie-walker
National Park Service (2022, January 21). Who Was Maggie Lena Walker? Maggie L. Walker, Maggie L Walker National Historic Site. https://www.nps.gov/people/maggie-l-walker.htm
Leon C. Prieto, L. C. & Simone T. A. Phipps (2019). African American Management History: Insights on Gaining a Cooperative Advantage. Emerald.
Unladylike2020 (2020). Maggie Lena Walker: Entrepreneur and first African American woman bank president / 1864-1934. https://unladylike2020.com/profile/maggie-lena-walker/
