“Mother of us poets”

Abstract

This chapter describes Margaret Walker as a literary inspiration for the Black women writers of the Black Arts movement and positions Walker, a member of the Black Chicago Renaissance of the 1930s and 40s, as an active participant in the Black Arts movement. Walker’s support of the Black-owned Broadside Press and founding of the Institute for the Study of the History, Life, Culture of Black People (now the Margaret Walker Center) at Jackson State University are two examples of Walker’s aesthetic praxis for centering Black life and culture. Additionally, Walker’s poem “For My People” served as a model for Black Arts movement poetry that spoke unapologetically to Black audiences.