Writer Margaret Walker focus of upcoming exhibit at JSU center
JSU's Margaret Walker Center also calls for submissions of student writing and art
The Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University has announced two exhibit openings and issued a call for student writing and artistic submissions.
On Oct. 2, the Margaret Walker Center will host the grand opening of a new exhibit focused on its founder, “Margaret Walker & the Power of Words,” which explores her early life, literary achievements, work as a professor at Jackson State and overall legacy.
Walker, a novelist and poet, founded the center as a public archive and museum dedicated to the preservation, interpretation and dissemination of the culture and history of the African American community. She was part of the literary movement known as the Chicago Black Renaissance and is best known for her works For My People (1942), which won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition, and the novel Jubilee (1966), set in the South during the American Civil War.
The exhibit opening (5:00-7:00 pm) will begin in the JSU Student Center Theater, featuring a talk by renowned scholar and Margaret Walker expert Maryemma Graham. A reception will follow, and the exhibit space, known as Gallery 1, will be open for tours. The event is free and open to the public. The gallery itself will open to the public beginning Sept. 22 (9 am-4 pm, Monday through Friday).
The center, located in historic Ayer Hall on the campus of Jackson State, also announced an exhibit at Jackson’s Millsaps College, “A Decade of Daring: 10 Years of the McMullan Young Writers Workshop.” The exhibit, which runs from Sept. 5 through Dec. 19, is located in the Riggs Reading Room of the college’s Wilson Library.
The McMullan Writers Workshops provide middle school, high school and adult writers an opportunity to develop as creative writers. The weeklong workshops feature writing instructors and literary guidance by college professors. Millsaps is located at 1701 North State Street in Jackson.
Because October is National Arts and Humanities Month, the Margaret Walker Center also issued a call for students of any age to submit “artistic and/or written responses” to their readings of Jubilee. Submissions can include essays, poems or artwork. The center will feature selected submissions in its October newsletters and on its social media pages, with more submissions featured in future editions. The call for submissions ends on Sept. 30.
Image via Margaret Walker Center.