(Note: This post was authored by Taylor McNeilly, Processing & Reference Archivist.) One of the most intriguing sets of materials donated by Dr. Walker: audio cassette recordings of many of his sermons and speeches. Some of the earliest cassettes date from the 1970s, while the latest were recorded in the early 2000s. That’s approximately three decades of sermons. I’ll talk more about the unique challenges of processing audio material when I get to really dig in, but I wanted to mention them to accentuate another set of materials Dr. Walker donated: written notes and manuscript copies of speeches and writings, including drafts of some book chapters – and an unpublished book. This #wyattwalkerwednesday, I want to take a deeper dive into these materials.

Much of this material predates even the earliest audio cassettes, with some of the material going as far back as 1963. Much of this writing focuses on Dr. Walker’s work on civil rights and desegregation, as well as gospel music and his international religious activities. These, coupled with the sermons recorded during his tenure as pastor of Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem, help provide a wider view of the man as he represented himself in public.

One of these manuscripts that is of particular interest is an unpublished work approximately 200 pages long entitled “King of Love.” This unpublished book, written between 1993 and 1995, is Walker’s retrospective look at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his work both in the church and in the Civil Rights Movement of the ’50s and ’60s. Because this manuscript was never published, we may hold the only extant copy of a work closely reviewing the life of one of the greatest civil rights leaders in U.S. history, written by one of his closest friends and advisors. This work is entirely unprecedented, and its potential for research into both Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dr. Walker cannot be overestimated.

Left: Photograph of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker. Right: Title page of “The King of Love” manuscript.

Overall, this series of material – Dr. Walker’s writings and speeches – has some incredible research potential. And don’t forget, we still have more material to add into the current structure of described material, so there’s a good chance we’ll add more to this series and others. So I’ll keep working on processing these materials, and of course I’ll keep updating this blog as work progresses. Keep in mind that I share images of cool stuff I find on Boatwright’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts, too, so make sure you’re subscribed and following!