Maggie L. Walker National Historical Site

The Maggie L. Walker National Historical Site, run by the National Park Service, is located in the historically African-American neighborhood of Jackson Ward.  The neighborhood is tightly squeezed between the VCU campus and I-95, but it is the site of both inspirational and controversial histories.

A portion of the facility is the original home of Maggie Walker, while the other sections are the homes of what would have been her neighbors and a former storefront.  Visitors enter the site through the back of the former store, finding an open room with a collection of books and brochures about Walker and the Jackson Ward neighborhood. The museum is intended to show the eternal legacy of Walker within post-Civil War Richmond.

When I entered, a National Park Ranger directed me to a room with an informational video, which provides a background of the noteworthy female civil rights activist. The narration was simulated to be Walker speaking to children about her life from when she was a schoolgirl to when she was an influential member of society. In a warm and calming tone, the video explains that she was born free and therefore was able to be educated, join community organizations, and find work. The beginning of the video emphasizes her experience as an African-American child attending church, getting involved in community efforts like the Independent Order of St. Luke, and graduating high school at the early age of 16.

As the video continues, we learn about the hardships in her life: her father died when she was 9, her child died as an infant, and her son accidently shot and killed her husband.  Despite these tragedies, she became a national leader of the Independent Order of St. Luke, a fraternal insurance society created for the care and burial of blacks and the support of humanitarian causes. From that position, she started an organization newspaper and a bank, where she eventually became the president.

When the video was over, the ranger came in and said that since I was doing a school project, I must know that there were a few inaccuracies in the video. Her birth date was not actually in 1867 rather than 1864, which jeopardizes the validity of her being born free. The image used to represent her as a young girl was actually her daughter. She was not the first woman to operate a bank, but rather the first African-American woman.  After these surprises, I was handed a packet of information in which he made corrections to even more inaccurate information. Do they do this for everyone? Is there something they want to cover up unless the information could be republished in a new form?

After this startling interaction, I was taken on a tour of her home. We walked around to the front of the home where we stopped and discussed the history of the neighborhood and the architectural style of her home.  Her particular street, once called Quality Street, was a wealthy African-American section of Jackson Ward. The area housed the black doctors, dentists, lawyers, and bankers and was the host to many famous musical acts.  Walker’s house however, was distinguished as one of the finest on the block. It was designed in the Italian Eighth style and when it was acquired in the early 1900s, she made many expansive and decorative changes.

As we entered the home, I was directed towards the parlor. Immediately, it was obvious that Walker was very wealthy. It was pointed out that the home was lit by electric lights and was heated by steam heat. The trim was detailed with gold paint and the room itself was decorated with expensive fabrics. We moved to the dining room, which was filled with artifacts that indicated her financial success. In this room we were informed that ninety percent of the artifacts were original to the house. Both family members and professional curators designed the exhibits, giving a visitor a strong sense of how Maggie Walker actually lived during the 1920s.

As we continue on, we learn that eleven family members lived in the home at one point. They often hosted parties and served alcohol (illegal at the time); however, Walker did not drink at all.  The tour guide emphasizes the indoor plumbing and the laundry room, luxuries of the time. As we are taken upstairs we are shown the elevator and her bedroom, which contained expensive furniture and fabrics. We are directed to notice the enclosed porch on her house where she would sit and watch parades that would be redirected specifically so she could watch and wave. Towards the end of the tour we learn that she even had a horse-drawn carriage and later an electric car (one of less than 100 in the city at the time).

This exhibit completely threw out my prior knowledge of the Jackson Ward area and the experience of blacks in the early 1900s. Why was there no mention of how this happened? Did she undergo any racial maltreatment?  The museum fails to take in to account a visitor’s understanding about racial inequalities from this time period.

The Maggie L. Walker National Historical Site is a site that could potentially distort the history of the life of African Americans in the early 1900s.  Walker had unique opportunities that few other blacks at the time had and her success was based on these opportunities.  The museum falls short of showing how unusual Walker’s situation was. Is the National Park Service intentionally presenting this era as a time when African Americans flourished?

For pictures and information, check out: http://www.nps.gov/mawa/index.htm