The Greatest Art is the Greatest Propaganda: The Fascinating and Tragic Life of Margaret Walker Alexander

Abstract

In 1949, the famed author and poet Margaret Walker took a position of employment with the English Department at Jackson State University, an appointment that she would hold for the next 30 years. Her tenure at Jackson State coincided with the rise of the Modern Civil Rights Movement and her diary entries during these turbulent years illustrate a woman in flux and tragically silenced as the black freedom struggle unfolded. This article discusses Walker's dilemma as it related to feeling voiceless in Mississippi's closed society but it also examines the ways in which Walker molded her students and in doing so, made contributions to their politicization and development as change agents. Walker's career would become a source of inspiration for later artists and writers of the Black Power and Black Arts Movements.