Margaret Walker Alexander (1983)

Poet, short story writer, biographer, distinguished teacher, and author of the immortal “For My People,” for half a century Margaret Walker Alexander was an eloquent and passionate voice, not only for her people, but for all people. In her first published work at the age of 19, she wrote, “I want to write / I want to write the songs of my people. / I want to hear them singing melodies in the dark. / I want to catch the last floating strains from their sob torn throats. / I want to frame their dreams into words; their souls into notes.” She enriched literature with the cadences, idiom, and wisdom of black folklore. Amiri Baraka said of her legacy, “Margaret Walker Alexander was the living continuum of the great revolutionary democratic arts culture that has sustained and inspired the Afro-American people since the middle passage.”