(Note: This post was authored by Taylor McNeilly, Processing & Reference Archivist.) There are many different tasks included in archival processing, many of which non-archives professionals may not really think about at all. Of course there’s the organization, the foldering, the putting everything into boxes. But one of the most interesting parts of processing a collection for me is coming across evidence of the donor’s cultural legacy and getting to research that legacy. I’d like to take this week’s #WyattWalkerWednesday to explore one such remnant of cultural impact from the Dr. and Mrs. Wyatt Tee Walker Collection: a play put on about Dr. Walker and his civil rights work in Virginia.

The “Ready*y For Right: A Petersburg Story” program with Sycamore Rouge insert.

Included in the collection is a program for the play “Read*y for Right: A Petersburg Story.” Without a page of copyright information like you’d find in a book, it can be hard to place something like this geographically or chronologically. Luckily, the theater staging this production was large enough (and modern enough) to have had an online presence, which makes placing it geographically pretty easy — turns out it was in nearby Petersburg. (You might have guessed that from the title, but archivists like to confirm that anyway.) Their online presence also shows that they are unfortunately closed, which cuts off one obvious avenue for questions. This makes placing it chronologically take a little more work.

To figure out when this play was put on, the easiest thing to do is search the program itself for context clues. We can tell by the style and quality of printing that it was most likely in the 21st century, but what can we tell from the information printed? What companies are placing ads? Do any of those have dates on them? It turns out one advertisement lists an event happening on “Saturday, October 25.” So let’s check to see what years October 25th fell on a Saturday and use those as a starting point. 2003, 2008, and 2014 are the most recent years that had a Saturday, October 25th. Since the theater, Sycamore Rouge, seems to have closed in 2013, we know it has to be earlier than that — so not 2014. Their online presence, some of which is still available, only dates back to 2011 or so, which doesn’t help us eliminate either 2008 or 2003 as possibilities.

Next, let’s look at some of the information given in the main text of the program. The message from the director doesn’t mention which season they’re in, and the timeline for her tenure is a bit vague. Looking at the list of actors and their biographies, however, we discover that the actor who played Dr. Walker is performing the role as his first with this company. Can we dig up any information about him?

While there’s plenty of information about this actor’s more recent roles (it seems he moved to Washington, DC), there’s not much to help in dating the show. What else can we find in the program to help us? And that’s when we hit gold! The Lighting Designer and Scenic Designer’s bios both mention work done in 2007, meaning this program must have been printed in ’07 or later. This, combined with the advertisement for “Saturday, October 25,” must mean that the show was put on in 2008. And to confirm this, the last page is a listing of Sycamore Rouge’s 2008-2009 season’s remaining shows, starting with December. On its own, this listing can’t confirm much, but combined with the information we picked up as we looked through the program, we know it must be 2008.

You can see how much work a single item in an archival collection may need, but this information is very helpful to archival staff in understanding the connections between the different items in the collection, as well as their connections to the donor. This can help us better serve researchers by providing access to materials we know are connected that the researcher may not be aware of when first coming in. And the information is also very helpful for researchers who come to use the collection, so we try our best to figure out as much as we can to help them along.

That’s it for this week’s #WyattWalkerWednesday post. As always, I’ll be back with a new glimpse into the processing of the collection next week. And in the meantime, feel free to follow the library’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts for more updates from around Boatwright.

(Note: This post was authored by Taylor McNeilly, Processing & Reference Archivist.) Hello, and welcome to another edition of #WyattWalkerWednesday! For this week’s post, I want to talk about a portion of the Dr. and Mrs. Wyatt Tee Walker Collection that many may not even realize could exist — but is already getting attention: Dr. Walker’s work as an ethnomusicologist and composer.

The Music Tree, copyright Wyatt Tee Walker, 1979.

Dr. Walker is, of course, primarily remembered for his work on the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ’60s, as well as his continued work in that vein throughout his life. He is also well remembered as a devout and active pastor, gaining a doctorate in theology from Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in 1975 (while already having been senior pastor at Canaan Baptist Church of Christ for eight years or so, talk about busy). But how many of you know that his doctoral thesis for that degree focused on Black Gospel music and its role in the Civil Rights Movement?

Dr. Walker donated his copy of that thesis, entitled “Scaffold of Faith: The Role of Black Sacred Music in Social Change,” to the University of Richmond before his passing. It is one of multiple items in the collection linked to Dr. Walker’s active role in this field. His work as an ethnomusicologist studying Black Gospel music, its roots in American slavery, and its effects on the modern American music scene, would continue throughout his life. In 1976, he organized a “Gospel Picnic” for the Newport Jazz Festival, followed six years later by a “Festival of Black Gospel” in 1982. In 1994, he wrote an article published in Score Magazine entitled “Music is Ministry, As Preaching is Ministry.” This article focused on the role of traditional Black Gospel in the black church, as well as the contemporary shift away from traditional music and that trend’s destructive effects on black churches and their communities’ faith.

Throughout this time, Dr. Walker was also writing and publishing books that focused on the Black Gospel tradition. His work on some, such as the “African American Heritage Hymnal,” are widely known and used today in black churches. Others, including “Spirits that Dwell in Deep Woods: The Prayer and Praise Hymns of The Black Religious Experience,” catapulted Dr. Walker to international fame. In fact, an unpublished manuscript in the collection recounts how Dr. Walker was introduced to Hisashi Kajiwara, a Japanese minister who came to Canaan Baptist Church of Christ from Japan to study under Dr. Walker. The manuscript goes on to tell how Kajiwara also introduced Dr. Walker to a Japanese pop star who, being engaged to a Catholic woman, asked Dr. Walker to fly to Japan with a group of gospel singers and coordinate the wedding music. Kajiwara would also go on to work with the Kobe Mass Choir and the United Church of Christ in Japan to translate and publish some of Dr. Walker’s work, including “Spirits that Dwell in Deep Woods.”

Perhaps the most visually stunning work on ethnomusicology that Dr. Walker donated is his large scale Music Tree poster, pictured above. This item, printed on canvas, is copyrighted 1979, four years after his Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School thesis. The poster is an image of a tree drawn by Dr. Walker depicting the growth of Black Gospel out of, at its roots, the “utterances and moans” of slaves brought to America. The trunk of the tree being Black Gospel, the branches — some intertwined — show the development of various forms of music both sacred and popular. The poster also seems to be accompanied by a VHS tape labeled “Roots of Music/Music Tree.” As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m currently focusing on processing the manuscript and object portions of the collection, so I can’t yet speak to the contents of the VHS. And since I’m not finished processing the manuscript materials yet, there may be even more material pertaining to Dr. Walker’s work with music waiting to be found, organized, and described. The ethnomusicology research potential in this collection is already exciting our faculty and researchers near and far, so I’m eager to finish the collection and open it to research, hopefully this fall.

And that’s it for this week’s post! As always, keep an eye on Boatwright Library’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds to keep up with our activities both in RBSC and outside the division. Otherwise, I’ll be back next week with another #WyattWalkerWednesday post!

(Note: This post was authored by Taylor McNeilly, Processing & Reference Archivist.) Sometimes while processing an archival collection, the archivist will come across some unexpected items. Typically when donating a collection, the donors are expected to sign something called a deed of gift, which outlines what is being donated and what rights are being included (copyright, for instance). While this can be viewed as a legal document protecting the interests of both parties, it also helps the archives and archivist know what they’re getting in the collection.

However, most deeds of gift aren’t entirely exhaustive in their inventorying of a new collection, although if it’s a small enough collection it might be. With a collection as large as the Dr. and Mrs. Wyatt Tee Walker Collection, the inventory was long but not exhaustive. Because of this, I’m always coming across material that isn’t expressly detailed in the deed of gift. Most of this is material you’d expect, and some of it I’ve talked about in previous posts. For this week’s #WyattWalkerWednesday, I want to mention some materials I’ve recently found while processing the collection that were a bit more unexpected.

The Walker Collection has a multitude of photographs, and we knew when it was donated that there would be some surprises hidden away in the masses. Dr. Walker was a photographer himself, and because of his pivotal role in multiple political movements, he was also often the subject of photography as well. Many of these latter photographs were well known and individually listed in the deed of gift inventory, but some seem to have slipped through unnoticed. One of these that I recently found is a photograph of a young Dr. Walker shaking hands with Richard Nixon.

There seems to be very little information on when or why Dr. Walker met with Nixon, but based on the relative ages of both men, our best guess is that it was during Nixon’s run as Vice President under Eisenhower. Nixon was Vice President 1953-1961, so whatever Dr. Walker was meeting with him over would have occurred early in his time working on the Civil Rights Movement, potentially before he began working with SCLC and Martin Luther King, Jr. While Nixon did take a public stand against school segregation in 1954, there seems to be no record of Nixon and Dr. Walker meeting. Where has this mysterious photo come from, and what other clues might we someday learn about this seemingly forgotten day in history?

The Walkers also donated dozens of posters and large size photographs as part of the collection, and many of these came to Boatwright Library unframed and stacked together in boxes, exactly as they were packed to be shipped. This is nothing unusual, but while recently going through a box that we thought was full of duplicate posters for a theatrical production based on the Freedom Rides in which both Dr. Walker and Mrs. Walker participated, I came across some items I did not expect: holiday decorations for Valentine’s Day and Easter.

Holiday decorations discovered in the Dr. and Mrs. Wyatt Tee Walker Collection.

These decorations are store bought, mass produced, and hold absolutely no bearing on the Walker Collection or any real insight into the lives of the Walkers (besides that they had large decorations for holidays, probably used to hang on the front door), but they are a cheerful and fun surprise to find in the box. It’s no surprise that, as a pastor of a Baptist church, Dr. Walker had decorations for a holiday as important to Christians as Easter. But how lucky to have discovered them just in time for Valentine’s Day as well!

As always, I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s peek into processing the Walker Collection! We continue posting material on Boatwright Library’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts as well, so check those out, too. Otherwise, we’ll see you back here next week!

(Note: This post was authored by Taylor McNeilly, Processing & Reference Archivist.) For this week’s #WyattWalkerWednesday, I thought I would piggyback off the past few days’ focus on the Book of Kells facsimile edition we hold in the Rare Book Room here in Boatwright to discuss a different edition of the Bible: The African American Jubilee Edition of the King James Version, donated as part of the personal library of Dr. Walker.

Dr. Walker’s copy of the Holy Bible The African American Jubilee Edition, King James Version

The African American Jubilee Edition was published in 1999. While there is a dedication page specifically designed for use as a form for gifting, there is no indication on that page or any other that Dr. Walker was gifted this book rather than having purchased it himself. Considering its publication date, it seems unlikely that Dr. Walker used this particular Bible extensively for his preaching, as he retired from Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in 2004. However, Dr. Walker continued teaching theology at various schools after his retirement as pastor from Canaan, so it is possible that he used this Bible for theological study and instruction.

This Bible is well suited to such use, particularly by a pastor and scholar of Black preaching and Black gospel music. While the text of the Bible remains faithful to the 1611 King James Version (KJV), the first 280 pages or so of this volume are dedicated to a variety of scholarly works reviewing the Bible and Christianity through the lens of African American history and culture, with one of these essays dedicated to the Black gospel music that Dr. Walker studied and composed.

While this is just one book among Dr. Walker’s vast personal library (and certainly not as unique as the Book of Kells from our social media posts earlier this week), there are signs that he used this copy of the Bible extensively. The cover is permanently curled, which is most likely from being held open (the cover is faux leather and not paper, which would curl from humidity). The gilt edges of the text block are scuffed and scratched, while the cover itself has some minor signs of wear and tear (as well as a bit of staining). One page has a sticky note stuck to it, a list of names written on it. Most notably, perhaps, is the final 150 pages of the volume. At the opening pages of The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Philippians, the text block is broken. While this could be a random occurrence, it would seem to suggest that the volume was opened to this page often enough to break the text block here.

Scholars of Dr. Walker’s sermons and theological writings can determine whether they believe The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Philippians to have been a section of particular importance to him, especially in the final two decades of his life. What I am certain of is that this Bible, while not as valuable or famous as the 8th century, illuminated manuscript Book of Kells, tells some part of the story of Dr. Walker’s life and work.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s post! As always, you can keep in touch with us on Boatwright’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts as well. Otherwise, I’ll see you here next Wednesday for another update on the Dr. and Mrs. Wyatt Tee Walker Collection!

(Note: This post was authored by Taylor McNeilly, Processing & Reference Archivist.) Hello, and welcome back to Something Uncommon! I hope everybody had a nice Winter Break (and you weren’t too disappointed that we took some time off from the blog?). This week we’re back, and introducing our newest #WyattWalkerWednesday blog post! This week, we’re actually focusing on Mrs. Theresa Ann Walker, wife to Dr. Walker and activist in her own right.

One of the amazing things about the Dr. and Mrs. Wyatt T. Walker Collection is the inclusion of some of Mrs. Walker’s material. While perhaps not as well known as her husband, Mrs. Walker was nonetheless heavily involved in the Civil Rights Movement and participated in several major protests. In fact, Mrs. Walker was arrested as one of the Freedom Riders during a demonstration in Jackson, Mississippi in 1961.

Some of the material Mrs. Walker included in this collection relates directly to her time in the Jackson, MS jail. Included in that material is the tin cup that Mrs. Walker was given for the five days she was held. Mrs. Walker was also able to remember the layout of the cells she was held in, including the other Freedom Riders held with her and the placement of their cots. Mrs. Walker was kind enough to donate a copy of all her notes, including the layout of the cells and a detailed timeline of her imprisonment.

Handwritten notes detailing Mrs. Walker’s time in jail

Mrs. Walker was held from June 21 until June 26. Rev. Walker was also arrested and held in Jackson, along with 15 other Freedom Riders. This was a continuation of a larger demonstration by the Freedom Riders that began in May of 1961. For more information on the Freedom Riders and their part in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, you can always check out Boatwright’s online catalog or the appropriate Wikipedia pages.

For more information concerning the Walker Collection and my progress processing it, please keep an eye on this space! And as always, check out Boatwright’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts for even more glimpses behind the scenes while we prep the collection for use.

(Note: This post was authored by Taylor McNeilly, Processing & Reference Archivist.) One of the types of materials that many archival collections have in common is correspondence. This can also be one of the most interesting things to process, depending on how prolific the donor’s friends were and what they talk about. In the case of Rev. Walker and his wife, their correspondence is incredible to work with.

For instance, take the manuscript of a play hand typed by Langston Hughes that was sent to the Walkers. This is a real piece of history, from one major 20th century figure to another. Hughes, if you are unfamiliar, is a very well known poet — you can find more on him on Wikipedia and elsewhere (or here). What makes this 1963 manuscript, entitled Jerico Jim Crow Jerico, particularly interesting is how Hughes uses black gospel music as a main pillar within the work, and the connection that creates with Rev. Walker’s own work. (If you will recall, Rev. Walker is an eminent expert on the black gospel musical tradition, with several published works on the topic.) While I have not uncovered further details of any relationship between Hughes and Rev. Walker, it might prove to be a strong topic for further research.

The Langston Hughes manuscript is hardly the only correspondence of interest in the Dr. and Mrs. Wyatt T. Walker Collection. Other items of particular note include several cards from Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, including a holiday card from Coretta dated 1970, two years after his assassination. There is correspondence from other major figures, including a dinner invitation for Desmond Tutu.

Rev. Walker is well known both for his anti-apartheid work in South Africa and his expertise on the black gospel tradition. Another, perhaps lesser known aspect of the man was his interest and skill in photography. This is highlighted in another item within Rev. Walker’s donated personal papers, a guestbook from an art exhibition of his photography in 1977 entitled “African Journal.” This helps provide a link between Walker and the community of which he was a part from a different perspective than his more well-known aspects. Luckily for us, the collection also includes plenty of slides to help showcase this different side.

There are a lot more interesting pieces I’ve found in the correspondence and personal papers, and some of them will be posted on the library’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds — make sure to check those out! I’ll also keep updating the blog on a weekly basis as I continue preparing the collection for public use and research, so keep an eye on this space for next week’s post.

Staff photo of Taylor McNeilly

(Note: This post was authored by Taylor McNeilly, Processing & Reference Archivist.) Hi all! I’m Taylor McNeilly, and I’m the new Processing & Reference Archivist here at the Rare Books and Special Collections division of Boatwright Memorial Library. I’d like to take a moment to tell you a little about myself and the work I will be doing here at RBSC.

I’m a New England native, having grown up in Rhode Island (the littlest state with the biggest name!), and went through my undergraduate career in western Massachusetts. I originally was a linguist by training, specializing primarily in Japanese with some minors/various levels of learning in Russian, French, and a handful of other languages. After graduating, I moved to Japan and taught English before deciding my heart resided in libraries and archives more than teaching. (I am still conversationally fluent in Japanese, however — and ASL, too!)

After returning to the US, I studied and worked at Simmons College in Boston, going through a full-time dual degree program to earn both an MLIS with an archives management concentration and a MA in History at the same time. I also worked as a professor’s assistant and, later, as the archives assistant at the college. I was also actively volunteering or interning in various archives throughout my time at Simmons, meaning that I have over 4 years of experience in my field despite only having my degrees for about half that time.

After leaving Simmons, I worked at the Congregational Library & Archives in Boston. There, I was the project manager for two separate, simultaneous, grant-funded digitization projects while also performing a variety of other responsibilities, including running the institution’s ArchivesSpace implementation and helping to develop a three-year strategic plan for the archives.

Many of these responsibilities are carrying over to my work here at RBSC, but my main priority starting out is going to be processing the Dr. and Mrs. Wyatt T. Walker Collection. You may have seen some info about the Walker Collection before now, but I’ll give you a quick refresher now.

The Rev. Dr. Wyatt T. Walker is a prominent Civil Rights figure, renowned minister, prolific author, and international expert on gospel music, the Black religious experience, and non-violent protest. Walker was also the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s chief of staff for the years 1960-1964, as well as the first full-time executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, president of a local NAACP chapter, state director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and special assistant to Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Walker was also the minister at the historic Gillfield Baptist Church in Petersburg, VA before becoming active in the Civil Rights Movement, and afterwards was the minister at Canaan Baptist Church in Harlem, NY for nearly 40 years.

RBSC acquired the Walker Collection in 2015, although that is a bit of an oversimplification. The Walker Collection’s material has been donated in various stages, with some material coming from NY while some comes from Dr. Walker’s current home in VA. Donated material has continued to come in, even as recently as earlier this month. As such, work on arranging and describing the material has had to wait until most (if not all) of the material was available.

Since we now have the majority of the material, and now that I’m here, processing of the Walker Collection can move forward! It will be closed to researchers until I can finish working on the collection as a whole, but I will be sharing the process of arrangement and description here as part of a new weekly blog series. I’ll also be posting interesting items I uncover during processing on the Boatwright Memorial Library’s Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook feeds, so be sure to follow all our social media accounts to keep updated on what cool stuff I find!

If you have any questions about the Dr. and Mrs. Wyatt T. Walker Collection or RBSC in general, leave them in the comments below! And otherwise, I’ll see you next week for another progress update on the Walker Collection.