05/13/2026
In 1968, Margaret Walker—author, activist, and Jackson State University faculty member—founded the Institute for the Study of the History, Life, and Culture of Black People. Later named the Margaret Walker Center, this archive and museum is dedicated to the preservation, interpretation, and dissemination of African American history and culture. Collections holdings include the history of the university, community histories, Civil Rights and Black Panther material, and the Margaret Walker papers, which include correspondences to Walker from other prominent writers, including Richard Wright and Alice Walker.
Margaret Walker purchased this typewriter in 1976 and used it to write four of her publications—”Richard Wright Daemonic Genius: (1988), “This is My Century: New and Collected Poems” (1989) “How I Wrote Jubilee” (1990) and “On Being Female, Black, and Free” (1997).
You can see the typewriter in “At The Vanguard: Making and Saving History at HBCUs” on view now at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture through July 19.
The exhibition will be traveling across the nation through Spring 2029. You can follow the tour schedule here: https://s.si.edu/4bB89q3
"At the Vanguard" is a collaboration between the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. It is part of the HBCU History and Culture Access Consortium Initiative made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and a bequest from Dr. Beryl Carter Rice.
📷: Courtesy of The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture; Collection of the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University
