Newly found Maggie Walker papers set for unveiling

Today is a significant day in the history of Maggie L. Walker, Richmond's leading lady in the struggle for the advancement of black women during the Jim Crow era.

New documents discovered by first-year College of William and Mary students that help round out Walker's history will be unveiled at an event at the Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site.

"Some people wait all their lives to find something like this," said professor Heather Huyck, who leads the school's Maggie Walker seminar. "It's pretty neat that it happened for these kids their first year in college."

In February, students from the school's Sharpe Program made a trip to the St. Luke building in Jackson Ward. Part of the seminar's goal is to gain a National Historic Landmark designation for the long-vacant structure that was once home to the Independent Order of St. Luke.

The organization, led by Walker, was an African-American women's fraternal order that eventually reached 24 states and 100,000 members. It eventually spawned Walker's St. Luke Penny Savings Bank, the first bank in the U.S. chartered by a black woman.

. . .

While members of Huyck's class were shooting video of the building, which is owned by the Stallings family of Richmond, they stumbled upon an interesting discovery: dozens of boxes and piles of papers left behind in the attic since the building's closure in 1989. Beneath piles of documents from the 1970s and'80s, the students found others from the 1920s and'30s.

Among the papers were four copies of the St. Luke Herald, the organization's house newspaper. Only four other copies of the paper are known to exist, Huyck said. Other documents included member and policy cards, death notices and personal correspondence to and from Walker.

"I found a letter Maggie Walker had signed and then we got really excited," said Amy Nicole Clinter, a Sharpe Fellow and sophomore from Front Royal. "It's just a really incredible personal connection you can feel through these documents. It shows how important she was not just on a local scale but throughout the country, which we only had hints of."

With the help of the National Park Service, 31 boxes of old materials were rescued.

Huyck said the documents will "provide insights into how the Independent Order actually operated and how these women worked."

"We had been told no such records existed and had searched hard to find any documents from the Independent Order of St. Luke," Huyck said. "These documents have the potential to rewrite African-American and American history."

The Stallings family is letting the students research the documents and preserve and copy them before handing them over to the National Park Service, which will put select items on display at the Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site on Second Street in Richmond.

"This is truly treasures of the attic," said David Ruth with the Park Service. "It tells an amazing story, and the records we have of the St. Luke organization are pretty scant, so this is exciting because we're hopefully going to add considerably to our knowledge."

He added that what he had seen of the papers could provide a critical link to understanding African-American business in the early 20th century.

Contact Wesley P. Hester at (804) 649-6976 or .