(Note: This post was authored by Taylor McNeilly, Processing & Reference Archivist.) Hi all, I know it’s been a while since the blog’s last #WyattWalkerWednesday post, so I thought I’d take a minute to give a quick update on the Dr. and Mrs. Wyatt Tee Walker Collection! This may not be as groundbreaking an update as some of our springtime posts, but I hope you’ll enjoy reading it anyway.
First and foremost, manuscript processing continues. Due to a few unforeseen circumstances, I can’t give an update on the current timeline for research access to the manuscript portion of the collection, but rest assured that we’re doing everything we can to move that forward.
On a more immediately useful note, we have just published a full listing of the collection’s recordings of sermons Dr. Walker gave during his time at Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem. There are 680 such recordings, starting in 1977 and ending in 2003, with the bulk sitting between 1980 and 2002. Many of them include the full church service, providing an in-depth glimpse of Black Baptist church services in the late 20th century. This is especially significant at Canaan Baptist, where Dr. Walker placed a strong emphasis on the music of services. We hope that these recordings will be of particular interest to musicologists, theologians, and others interested in the history of music for enjoyment or research purposes.
The full inventory of Dr. Walker’s sermons, which includes nearly every weekly and holiday sermon for the final two decades of the 20th century, can be found on our digital collections page here. Please note that the recordings themselves are not available online, but can be listened to on-site at the Rare Book Room here in Boatwright Library. If you’d like to come in and listen, please fill out our Rare Books Materials Request form and include the file identifier of all recordings you’d like to hear.
As always, questions can be directed to me via email or phone. My information is available on the library’s Rare Books and Special Collections webpage. Future updates will of course be posted here on the blog, and you can also keep updated on what the library is doing on our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts.