(Note: This post was authored by Taylor McNeilly, Processing & Reference Archivist.) Previous #wyattwalkerwednesday posts have discussed the close friendship and collaboration on civil rights work between Dr. Walker and Dr. King. Today, which marks the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, seems a poignant moment to look at both men, their friendship, and their legacy.

A letter, framed, from Coretta Scott King to Dr. Walker, thanking him for his work in organizing Dr. King’s funeral and support after Dr. King’s assassination.

Dr. Walker and Dr. King first met in the early 1950s while they were both at seminary, presidents of their respective classes and in charge of their respective inter-seminary groups. Dr. Walker credits Dr. King’s work as the reason he first accepted the non-violent approach to civil rights work, and we have correspondence in the Dr. and Mrs. Wyatt Tee Walker Collection between Dr. Walker and Dr. King discussing this approach to protest from as early as the late 1950s, when Dr. Walker was pastor at Gillfield Baptist Church in Petersburg, VA. In fact, we have a letter from Dr. King to Dr. Walker from late 1958 expressing Dr. King’s support for Dr. Walker’s “Prayer Pilgrimage,” a protest Dr. Walker had discussed with Dr. King during a visit to the King family. The Prayer Pilgrimage was a march held on New Year’s Day of 1959, starting at a mosque in Richmond, leading across a dozen or so blocks, and ended at the south portico of the Virginia State Capitol. This march, titled in full a Pilgrimage of Prayer for Public Schools, was held to protest Virginia’s resistance to the integration of public schools. Dr. King recorded remarks and sent them to be played at the march as a show of support, for which Dr. Walker thanked him profusely in a later letter.

Of course, Dr. Walker and Dr. King began working together much more closely in 1960, when Dr. Walker was made the first full-time director of SCLC and the unofficial right hand man of Dr. King. The next four years would prove wildly successful for both men and SCLC, culminating in such notable milestones as A Letter From Birmingham Jail, the March on Washington and “I Have A Dream” speech, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act. While Dr. Walker left SCLC in 1964, he and Dr. King remained close friends. Ten days before his assassination, Dr. King installed Dr. Walker at his installation service at Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem. In his oral history interview for the University of Richmond, Dr. Walker notes that this installation service was the last time Dr. King preached in New York before he was killed.

But the story of Dr. Walker and Dr. King does not end with Dr. King’s death. Coretta, recently widowed, reached out to ask Dr. Walker for his assistance in planning the funeral and homegoing service, including the march to Morehouse. This final service to Dr. King, attended by some 400,000 people, was one of Dr. Walker’s “capstones” as an organizer.

And so today is a day for remembrance, not only of the man Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was, but of the work he and Dr. Walker did for this country in the 1950s and 1960s. Their fight against the racism woven into the fabric of American culture and government, the economic inequality of American life, and the progress they made against these forces not only improved the lives of Americans, but have become a memorial of their work together and lifelong friendship. Much as Dr. Walker felt that he was part of “the unfinished revolution of 1776,” his work and Dr. King’s did not end with their passing, a message that should be held close in all our hearts on this anniversary.

In honor of Dr. King, the University of Richmond will be taking part in an international tolling of the bells. The University’s bells will toll 39 times at 7:05pm, marking Dr. King’s 39 years on Earth at the minute his death was announced nationwide.

(Note: This post was authored by Taylor McNeilly, Processing & Reference Archivist.) You may not be aware, but March 14 isn’t just Pi Day (although you should definitely be having a slice of pie while you read this). March 14 is also National Spider Day, and the University of Richmond – with its proud and prominent mascot, the spider – can’t help but celebrate.

Since this once-a-year holiday happens to fall on #WyattWalkerWednesday this year, I thought I’d take the opportunity to write a different kind of post about the Walker Collection. So instead of focusing on an item I’ve come across processing the Walker Collection, I’m going to focus on what it means for the Walker Collection to have come to the University of Richmond and some of the ways we’re supporting and using the collection.

A photograph and poster on display from the Dr. and Mrs. Wyatt Tee Walker Collection.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the Dr. and Mrs. Wyatt Tee Walker Collection is immense. Not only is it comprised of a large amount of material, but that material is itself comprised of a large number of media formats. Many people think of archival collections as manuscript collections, i.e. paper-based collections. And of course, the Walker Collection includes boxes upon boxes of paper materials, including handwritten items, typewritten manuscripts, commercial advertisements, and published materials. But that’s just the tip of the figurative iceberg with the Walker Collection. We have vinyl records, photographic slides, actual photographs, photograph negatives, audio cassettes, VHS tapes, foam-mounted posters, and even some 8mm and 16mm film reels. There are awards made of glass, awards made of wood, awards made of metal, awards made of plastic, and awards made of all different combinations of material. There’s even an award that includes a globe made of different gems and stones. There are ceremonial robes and everyday robes, there’s even an engraved walking stick. There’s a silver tea set, an aluminum cup, and a golf trophy. There are so many different kinds of items in the collection that just identifying them all  can be a real challenge (are those Super 8 or Standard 8 film reels? Is this 16mm film an acetate base? Is this award bowl made of stone, ceramic, or something else?)

Luckily, with the Walker Collection’s donation to the University of Richmond, we have the expertise to identify most of these formats right away. Most archivists could do this with a bit of work, but where the Spider Pride comes into the equation is in creating access to these materials. It’s all well and good to know that you have a Super 8 film reel, but how do you allow researchers to view it? How do you preserve the audio cassettes that are already beginning to fade with age while also letting researchers listen to them? The University has the know-how to make these many and varied formats accessible while still preserving the items, and we’re looking into options now to help make this possible as quickly as we can.

But the University of Richmond is, first and foremost, an institute of higher education. And that is how we can fulfill one of the most important of Dr. Walker’s wishes when he donated the collection: using it for education. Dr. Walker was a passionate supporter of education throughout his life, working as a teacher even after he moved to Virginia and retired from preaching. It was his fervent wish that the collection that bears his name be used not just for scholarly research but also for education. And the University of Richmond is uniquely positioned to help fulfill that role of the collection, using it in instruction sessions for classes, potentially lending items to other institutions for display, and someday even digitizing it for more widespread use.

Finally, I would just like to say that much of my Spider Pride comes from my work on the Dr. and Mrs. Wyatt Tee Walker Collection. I am proud to belong to an institution that recognizes and honors the people who have worked so hard to better not just their state or country but the entire world.

The Reverend Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker with his wife, Theresa Ann Walker, 2017.

(Note: This post was authored by Taylor McNeilly, Processing & Reference Archivist.) Today we mourn the passing of the Reverend Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker. Dr. Walker passed away Tuesday morning after a long and active life, surrounded by his family.

Various biographies of Dr. Walker are widely available, including the short, introductory biography I wrote in my first blog post. In the past day, major newspapers and other sources have published works honoring and remembering Dr. Walker, including the University of Richmond. However, it seems an appropriate time to discuss more of Dr. Walker’s life in detail particularly through the lens of the primary source material he and his wife, Theresa Ann Walker, generously donated to the University of Richmond in 2015.

While doing preliminary processing of Dr. Walker’s material, I have looked through much of the material he donated, discovering many different facets of Dr. Walker along the way. (This is one of the many reasons I’m so eager to process the collection and open it to researchers: the nuanced life and personality of Dr. Walker is amazing to discover, and I sincerely look forward to the research opportunities this collection will open up.)

My initial blog introduction to Dr. Walker did not mention the fact that he was a strong, outspoken activist for the anti-apartheid movement and served as an election monitor during the free election in South Africa. In fact, he was so well recognized within the movement that Nelson Mandela visited Dr. Walker and Canaan Baptist Church during his first visit as President of South Africa to the United States in 1994.

Dr. Walker’s music legacy is also far larger than previously mentioned. Beyond being a preeminent scholar and expert on black gospel music, Dr. Walker composed his own music in that musical tradition. He also revived the musical fervor at Canaan Baptist Church, eventually leading the church to produce multiple choral albums. Canaan Baptist continues to have a choral group named for their pastor emeritus, the Wyatt Tee Walker Inspirational Chorus.

Dr. Walker is recognized as a leading expert on the black gospel tradition not only in America, but also abroad. One of his many international trips brought him to Japan, where he interacted with the Kobe Mass Choir under the direction of Hisashi Kajiwara. Kajiwara later worked with the Kobe Mass Choir and the United Church of Christ in Japan to translate and publish Dr. Walker’s book Spirits that Dwell in Deep Woods in Japan. Kobe Mass Choir recorded an album of hymns Dr. Walker had selected or written that was published as a supplement to the book. (These materials are listed in the Boatwright catalog here.)

On a related note, Dr. Walker’s friends weren’t limited to world famous civil rights leaders and national leaders. One of the books donated alongside Dr. Walker’s papers is an autographed copy of Jackie Robinson’s Baseball Has Done It. In the inscription to Dr. Walker, Robinson states “it’s an honor to list you among my closest friends.” The catalog record for this volume, with the full inscription, is available here.

As previously mentioned, Dr. Walker’s work in Harlem went beyond his work as pastor of Canaan Baptist Church. For ten years, 1970-1980, Dr. Walker served as Special Assistant for Urban Affairs to Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Dr. Walker was also the largest single developer of affordable housing in New York City, and the co-founder of the first charter school approved by the State University of New York, the Sisulu-Walker Charter School of Harlem.

In between all of these laudable achievements, Dr. Walker somehow found time to write and publish countless works. He has published over 30 books and countless essays in between weekly sermons. Many of his published books can be found in our catalog. Canaan Baptist Church also recorded many of his sermons, beginning in the early 1980s. These were donated as part of the collection and are currently undergoing preservation work before being opened to the public.

Alongside the numerous audio recordings of his sermons, Dr. Walker also donated a huge collection of personal slides. While some of these slides are images taken during Dr. Walker’s activism or work, including images of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Rev. Ralph Abernathy, the majority of these slides portray Dr. Walker’s personal life and travel.

In his spare time (between being Dr. King’s right hand man, the largest single developer of affordable housing in NYC, leading anti-apartheid efforts, and all of his work in churches both musically and pastorally), Dr. Walker seems to have greatly enjoyed traveling. While we have not processed all of these slides, locations pictured in the slides we have looked at include Israel, London, Spain, Jamaica, Tangiers, the Soviet Union, Haiti, Mexico, Aruba, Portugal, Egypt, China, and Cuba. There are also many slides of family gatherings and events, including a World’s Fair and baseball games. These slides date from as early as 1960 continue into the 1980s at least, showing a personal side of Dr. Walker that may never have been seen before. The two-part oral history Dr. and Mrs. Walker graciously agreed to as part of the collection is another unadulterated glimpse into the personality of this astounding man.

The Reverend Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker lived a life full of love, determination, and a strong sense of justice. While his life’s work may defy a simple description, everything he did seemed focused around these concepts. Now, as that life has drawn to a close, we wish to honor his memory not just for everything he has done but for who he was. While his many and varied accomplishments are well known, the person who was Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker is perhaps best discovered through the stories of his life and the personal collection he and his wife created. We anticipate opening the collection for research use after processing is completed by the fall of 2018. Working on the collection of such an accomplished and esteemed person makes me proud to be an archivist and to be preserving lives and stories like Dr. Walker’s. I am honored for the opportunity to do this work, as the University of Richmond is honored to help preserve his significant legacy.