National Civil Rights Leader Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker to Speak at VCU

By Mike Porter and Sue Robinson

The Virginia Commonwealth University Department of African American Studies, the College of Humanities and Sciences and VCU Libraries will host a presentation by national civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker this week.   

“Before and Beyond Birmingham: A Conversation with Wyatt Tee Walker, Legend of the Civil Rights Movement” will take place on Thursday, Nov. 3, beginning at 7 p.m. in the VCU Student Commons Ballrooms, 907 Floyd Ave. The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

Walker will discuss his life, his contributions to the civil rights movement and his role as chief of staff for Martin Luther King Jr. He will answer questions from the audience.

In 1950, Walker graduated magna cum laude from Virginia Union University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry and physics. Walker graduated from Virginia Union University’s Graduate School of Theology three years later. After graduation, Walker became pastor of Gillfield Baptist church in Petersburg, Va.

Walker was arrested after leading a group of African Americans through the “whites only” doors of a local library. It was the first of his 17 arrests during the civil rights struggle and attracted the attention of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.   

In 1960, Walker became the first full-time executive director of the Southern Christian leadership Conference and became King’s chief of staff. He helped to organize the famous “March on Washington” in March 1963.   
 
Walker authored “Somebody’s Calling My Name” in 1979 and has written more than a dozen books since. “Ebony” magazine declared him one of the “15 Greatest Black Preachers” in 1993 and he was inducted into the Civil Rights “Walk of Fame” in Atlanta in 2008.

For more information or special accommodation requests, call 804-828-1384 or contact Shawn Utsey, Ph.D., chairman of the Department of African American Studies, at soutsey@vcu.edu.