Research Catalog

Title

Wyatt Tee Walker audio and moving image collection : 252 items.

Author

Walker, Wyatt Tee

Publication

[1987]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division.

Description

• 251 audiocassettes
• 1 videocassette

Summary

The collection consists of 251 audio recordings and 1 moving image recording primarily of sermons, church services, lectures, and some interviews. The holdings are available in the Moving Image and Recorded Sound (MIRS) Division.

Subject

• Walker, Wyatt Tee
• Canaan Baptist Church (New York, N.Y.)
• African Americans > Songs and music
• African Americans > Music
• Church music > United States
• African American churches > New York (State) > New York
• African Americans > Religion
• African American clergy > New York (State) > New York

Genre/Form

• Sound recordings.
• Video recordings.

Biography (note)

• The Reverend Wyatt Tee Walker, pastor and civil rights leader, was born August 16, 1929 to John Wise and Maude Pinn Walker in Brockton, Massachusetts. After attending primary and secondary schools in Merchantville, New Jersey, he attended Virginia Union University (VUU), where he received his bachelor's degree in 1950. Upon graduation, he entered the school's seminary, where as president of the student body he met and made a lasting friendship with another seminarian and student body president, Martin Luther King, Jr., at a meeting of the Inter-Seminary Movement. He received the Master of Divinity degree from VUU in 1953, and that year became minister of the Gillfield Baptist Church in Petersburg, Virginia, embarking on a career that would make him one of the central figures in the civil rights struggles of the late 1950s and 1960s. As pastor of Gillfield Baptist, Walker was one of a number of generally younger, more activist ministers--the most famous of whom was King in Montgomery, Alabama. Replacing an older, more conservative clergy, they led congregations that had become larger and relatively more able to withstand the intimidation and violence brought to bear on them by defenders of the Southern status quo. Like his clerical peers in other cities, Walker assumed a leadership role in a number of organizations; in addition to his ministerial duties, Walker was president of the local chapter of the NAACP, state director of the Congress for Racial Equality, and founder of the Petersburg Improvement Association, a group patterned after the organization King had led to victory in the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-1956. King choose Walker to be a member of the board of his newly-created Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1958, and in the two years that followed, Walker and activist clergy from across Virginia inaugurated a “massive organizing effort” that led to the establishment of the SCLC's organizational structure in that state (Aldon D. Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement,[New York: The Free Press, 1984], p. 183). In 1959 he participated in meetings at the Institute on Nonviolent Resistance to Segregation at Spelman College along with Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, James Lawson, and Glenn Smiley. The next year, King asked Walker to become Executive Director of the SCLC, overseeing the organization's internal operations which were in some disarray. Walker accepted and during his tenure from 1960 to 1964 he was able to impose a greater degree of order over the SCLC's farflung and usually chaotic activities, while also helping systematize its fundraising efforts. Walker, however, was more than simply an office manager. In Birmingham, both Walker and his wife, Theresa Edwards Walker, were assaulted by law enforcement officers. In 1964, Walker left the SCLC to become marketing specialist for the Negro Heritage Library, and in 1966 he became president of that organization, which sought to convince school boards to include in their curricula “the role of black people in the American experience and in world affairs.” During this period, Walker also served for a short time as pulpit minister at Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.'s Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City, and he began a more lasting relationship with Nelson Rockefeller as the New York state governor's Special Assistant on Urban Affairs. It was in this latter capacity that Walker was able to plan and help secure the construction of the state's new office building (named for Powell) in Harlem. In 1967 Walker became chief minister of Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem, a position he continues to hold in 1991. In addition to his pastoral duties, Walker was able to complete his doctoral dissertation, receiving his Ph.D. from Colgate Rochester Divinity School in 1975, and to publish several works on the relation of music to social change and the black religious tradition, including Somebody's Calling My Nameand The Soul of Black Worship.He also made an unsuccessful run for the New York State Assembly. In 1978, Walker organized the International Freedom Mobilization to publicize the victims of apartheid in South Africa. Under his leadership, Canaan Baptist has been involved in the sponsorship of senior citizen's, housing, and drug rehabilitation programs.

Linking Entry (note)

• Forms part of the Wyatt Tee Walker archive. Papers can be found in the Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division (Sc MG 216).

Call Number

Sc MIRS Walker 1987-06

OCLC

1182631880

Author

Walker, Wyatt Tee, creator.

Title

Wyatt Tee Walker audio and moving image collection : 252 items.

Publisher

[1987]

Biography

The Reverend Wyatt Tee Walker, pastor and civil rights leader, was born August 16, 1929 to John Wise and Maude Pinn Walker in Brockton, Massachusetts. After attending primary and secondary schools in Merchantville, New Jersey, he attended Virginia Union University (VUU), where he received his bachelor's degree in 1950. Upon graduation, he entered the school's seminary, where as president of the student body he met and made a lasting friendship with another seminarian and student body president, Martin Luther King, Jr., at a meeting of the Inter-Seminary Movement. He received the Master of Divinity degree from VUU in 1953, and that year became minister of the Gillfield Baptist Church in Petersburg, Virginia, embarking on a career that would make him one of the central figures in the civil rights struggles of the late 1950s and 1960s. As pastor of Gillfield Baptist, Walker was one of a number of generally younger, more activist ministers--the most famous of whom was King in Montgomery, Alabama. Replacing an older, more conservative clergy, they led congregations that had become larger and relatively more able to withstand the intimidation and violence brought to bear on them by defenders of the Southern status quo. Like his clerical peers in other cities, Walker assumed a leadership role in a number of organizations; in addition to his ministerial duties, Walker was president of the local chapter of the NAACP, state director of the Congress for Racial Equality, and founder of the Petersburg Improvement Association, a group patterned after the organization King had led to victory in the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-1956. King choose Walker to be a member of the board of his newly-created Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1958, and in the two years that followed, Walker and activist clergy from across Virginia inaugurated a “massive organizing effort” that led to the establishment of the SCLC's organizational structure in that state (Aldon D. Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement,[New York: The Free Press, 1984], p. 183). In 1959 he participated in meetings at the Institute on Nonviolent Resistance to Segregation at Spelman College along with Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, James Lawson, and Glenn Smiley. The next year, King asked Walker to become Executive Director of the SCLC, overseeing the organization's internal operations which were in some disarray. Walker accepted and during his tenure from 1960 to 1964 he was able to impose a greater degree of order over the SCLC's farflung and usually chaotic activities, while also helping systematize its fundraising efforts. Walker, however, was more than simply an office manager. In Birmingham, both Walker and his wife, Theresa Edwards Walker, were assaulted by law enforcement officers. In 1964, Walker left the SCLC to become marketing specialist for the Negro Heritage Library, and in 1966 he became president of that organization, which sought to convince school boards to include in their curricula “the role of black people in the American experience and in world affairs.” During this period, Walker also served for a short time as pulpit minister at Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.'s Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City, and he began a more lasting relationship with Nelson Rockefeller as the New York state governor's Special Assistant on Urban Affairs. It was in this latter capacity that Walker was able to plan and help secure the construction of the state's new office building (named for Powell) in Harlem. In 1967 Walker became chief minister of Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem, a position he continues to hold in 1991. In addition to his pastoral duties, Walker was able to complete his doctoral dissertation, receiving his Ph.D. from Colgate Rochester Divinity School in 1975, and to publish several works on the relation of music to social change and the black religious tradition, including Somebody's Calling My Nameand The Soul of Black Worship.He also made an unsuccessful run for the New York State Assembly. In 1978, Walker organized the International Freedom Mobilization to publicize the victims of apartheid in South Africa. Under his leadership, Canaan Baptist has been involved in the sponsorship of senior citizen's, housing, and drug rehabilitation programs.

Linking Entry

Forms part of the Wyatt Tee Walker archive. Papers can be found in the Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division (Sc MG 216).

Connect to:

Request Access to Schomburg Moving Images and Recorded Sound

Added Author

Walker, Wyatt Tee.

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division.

Research Call Number

Sc MIRS Walker 1987-06