A Life of Maggie Lena Walker
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III Ransom for Many LIFE OF MAGGIE LENA WALKER Gertrude Woodruff Marlowe -I NPO22_ C2i HOWARD UNIVERSITY WASHINGTON D.C 20059 OFFiCE OFTHE COMPTROLLER /4 /41 November 20 1996 National Park Service US Custom House Room 251 200 Chestnut Streets Philadelphia PA 19106-2878 RE Order No 1443PX4800-96-055 Maggie Walker Biography Dr Gertrude Marlowe No 024697-1391 Dear Mr Tobias Enclosed is the Manuscript for the Maggie Walker Project done under the direction of Dr Gertrude Marlowe the book entitled Ransom for Many Life of Maggie Lena Walker might be published by Spring of 1997 Thank you for your patience am sorry for all the confusion Another copy is being forward to Ms Cynthia MacLeod at the Richmond National Battlefield Park As far as Dr Marlowes Research Notes have made no progress Please do not hesitate to call if you have any questions The University is thankful for your continued support All the best Estela Velasquez Aspinwall Section Chief Restricted Fund Accounting CC Ms Cynthia MacLeod Enc LI In In grateful memory of my mother Gertrude Marvin Woodruff Stokes 18921975 whose passionate leadership within the YWCA taught me much about the power and problems of womens organizations pioneering social change -$- II Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction End and 3eginning Preparation 21 Apprenticeship 41 Speaking Out 61 Action 81 Consolidation 101 Personal Dimension 123 Point Counterpoint 145 Triumph and Tragedy 169 10 FinalYears 195 Appendix Notes on the Library xxx Appendix St Luke Membership Figures xxx Appendix The Will Controversy 215 Notes 219 Index 299 VII -$- Preface This is biography of record that is the major objcct has been to document the development of Maggie Lena Walkers life and thought her associates and her activities nature the are for her The of sources which sparse many years of life determined the focus on her public accomplishments She was vivid per son adept at many roles masterful performer in wide variety of dramas talented writer for the African Theatrical and script American community imagery comes naturally where she is concerned Wendell Dabney her high school classmate and biographer described her as an actress born diplo mat bred She was self-made woman in the economic sense and self-created one in the psychosocial sense In her dramas community perfor mance and personal performance constantly reinterpreted and reinforced each other It is this Maggie Walker we present The title comes from description of her written just after her death by Nannie Helen Burroughs Director of the National Training School for Women and Girls in Washington D.C friend co-worker and fellow race woman She was Burroughs wrote woman who gave her life ransom for many.2 This phrase encapsulates her leadership of group struggles for libera tion in period often seen as an age of accommodation for both African Americans and women Jackson Ward which was the principal home and business area of Rich mond Virginias most affluent African American population in the early twentieth century was designated National Historic Landmark Historic Dis trict in 1978 Three years previously through strenuous community efforts Maggie Walkers house in the Ward had been named National Historic Land mark The house was upgraded to National Historic Site in 1978 when it was the Service in the acquired by National Park Restored to its appearance 1920s it was opened to the public in 1985 becoming the sixth National Park Ser vice site honoring an African American and the second honoring black woman.3 It became even more important therefore to understand as much as possible about her life ix NI PREFACE Michael Chesson has referred to the perils of writing Virginia history.4 He did not speciF them but hardly needed to since the strong proud conscious ness of local history in Virginia and specifically Richmond has often been remarked This makes for record and upon superb keeping an indigenous j5ro- prietary investment in how people use and interpret the material The hazards are at least doubled in writing biography Powerful myth making forces posi tive and negative surround the Maggie Walker story not few set in motion herself As by an interdisciplinary faculty-student team made up of anthropolo gists sociologist historians and divinity student we tried to understand her from many perspectives using the detailed approach of the ethnographic method and its retrospective twin social history We were early convinced that this unusual woman could not be understood without understanding the interdependent relationships between her and an unusual community.5 She so personified core community values that she be came an icon in her own day and has now come locally to represent an entire generation Neither the term culture heroine nor charismatic leader although accurate descriptions and suggestive of certain aspects of these relationships seems adequate to comprehending her popularity The more we learned about the numbers of talented community oriented leaders and innovative organi _4 zations characteristic of African American Richmond and Virginia at this time .4 the the For more we pondered social processes of iconography example even given the graciQus hyperbole of the time the often quoted tribute to Maggie Walker made by the Governor of Virginia Lee Trinkle in 1924 seems ex treme If the of had in with the funds State Virginia done no more4 fifty years spent on the education of Negroes than educate Mrs Walker the State would have been amply repaid for its outlay and efforts.6 This is in sharp contrast to Maggie Walkers own speech on the First African Baptist Church Sunday School which she ended by listing thirty-two distin few of she gi.ilshed graduatesAa very host emphasized.7 The ultimate irony of the icon creation process is that it took place in an at mosphere of cooperative endeavor and organization building Her life from childhood had strikingly dual quality combining the personal and commu nal For her generation born at the close of the Civil War the agenda was effort which flowed from community building This was very self-conscious Ht PREFACE held values and reaction and deeply was only partially to history rising seg regation Efforts were broadly based led by an elite who managed to wrest precarious-middle class status from hostile world There was an explosion of institutional forms new to the black community schools and colleges banks insurance companies stores study groups service and civic action groups womens clubs Emancipation also brought the expansion develop ment and tailoring of old forms such as mutual benefit societies into and which also effective bases entrepreneurial political groups provided power for their leaders Richmond Virginia was in the forefront of these activitics which were mirrored throughout the urban south and little differently in the north Maggie Walkers activities as Secretary-Treasurer of the Independent Or der of St LukeAbuilding the fçiternal to over 100000 members including over 20000 children in twenty-thre states developing the insurance program organizing the bank the newspap4r the department storcAwere summary or synthesis of community action executed with many colleagues in distinc tive style and importantly with an unusually continuous success Her organizational talents her ability tJ learn from others running similarenter prises her honesty her span of dratorical skills her ability to act on her _4 passionate belief in business as the avenue of advancement for the African _$.. American community and her equally passionate dedication to addressing the economic neds ofvomen all combined to make her an outstanding leader She was able to articulate and give back to the community hopeful vision of themselves that most could respond to whether or not they agreed with it In addition to Virginia St Luke was very strong organization in the Dis trict of Columbia Baltimore Philadelphia and New York and active in many other places She traveled frequently and widely on fraternal business build ing national reputation She was an officer or on the board of the National Association of Colored Women the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People the National Association of Wage Earners and the National Negro Business League No more provincial figure than anyone else during time when people remained geographically grounded even if they migrated she was secure part of closely knit national African American leadership elite Many of these leaders particularly women have dropped out of memory ex cept in their local communities or among the descendants of migrants from their home area It is hard for instance to find an African American within two generations of Richmond who does not know of Maggie Walker and the 1.0 XI -- Ii PREFACE ofSt Luke The fact that her fraternal organization was primarily womans also have contributed her organization may to national eclipse.8 There is in addition an ambivalent view of the importance of fraternals particularly in terms of their business operations often complicated by hostility toward ritualistic secret societies which for some groups was religiously based Despite overwhelming evidence of their importance within the black commu nity historically and to lesser extent today the view of fraternals is often embarrassed and trivializing The mass nature of the organizations and their functions for socialization leadership training economic development and community building for hundreds of thousands of African Americans made them key institutions During her lifetime