Despite the heat that saw the temperature climb over 100 degrees, one of Richmond's most prominent historical figures was honored Friday.
The Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia celebrated Maggie L. Walker’s 160th birthday in Gallery 5 on West Marshall Street after being moved from the Maggie Walker Memorial Plaza due to heat.
The event was attended by over 100 people, who celebrated with drinks, art and dance.
The celebration featured a live D.J. and performers from The Love Movement, who led the crowd in Maggie L. Walker trivia and dancing.
Walker was an entrepreneur, newspaper editor, bank president and political candidate from Jackson Ward who played an integral part in its development and success.
Members of Walker’s family attended, including her great-great-granddaughter Liza Mickens and her great-grandson Johnny Mickens III.
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“We’re super excited. It feels great to have the 160th birthday celebration of Maggie Walker right here in Jackson Ward,” Liza Mickens said. “It’s so great to have the community come out and be a part of this. Maggie centered the community in everything she did, and it’s great see the way the community embraces her.”
The gallery featured art from Richmond students whose schools have direct ties to Walker.
“My idea as the interpreter was, we’ll get art from the schools where Maggie Walker went to school, where Maggie Walker was born and the school that was named in her honor,” said National Park Ranger Nathan Hall, who helped arrange the exhibits.
All art was made by students from Bellevue Elementary School, which was built on Walker’s birth site; Armstrong High School, Walker’s alma mater; and Maggie L. Walker Governor's School, which is named in her honor.
“Maggie Walker’s whole thing was children, education; she started out as a teacher,” Hall said. “And really her making history is kind of finding how to still work with kids after doing that as a teacher.”
Shakia Gullette Warren, executive director of the Black History Museum & Cultural Center, said Walker is more than a historical figure to Jackson Ward; rather, she was a “revolutionary.”
“She is our hidden figure,” Warren said. “She is someone we have not learned about over the years, and this specific event and the next two weeks is really about celebrating her legacy and more importantly, her personhood.”
Warren said Walker’s emphasis on education is something that the organization still stresses.
“We are still living in a time period where education is paramount and it’s key in terms of educating the Black child and the Black adolescent,” she said.
Mary C. Lauderdale, director of collections at the museum, echoed Warren’s stress on education. She said that in her 30 years at the museum, it’s a mission that has remained at the forefront.
Lauderdale said Walker was a multifaceted figure who refused to be put in a box.
“She ran the first Black business on Broad Street, and she was a woman, at a time when Blacks weren’t allowed on Broad Street,” Lauderdale said. “She never put people in categories regarding to their color. She very well could have taken advantage of that. She wouldn’t stand for that.”
Faithe Norrell, education and programming coordinator for the museum, spoke before attendees on the importance of Black history, which she said has been deliberately hidden.
She said the museum's mission is to tell stories that "promote and advance understanding of the history of Black people" in Virginia.
"We do that through inspirational stories that have either been untold or under-told or purposefully left out because of the Lost Cause false narrative," she said.
She noted that the first enslaved Africans reached Virginia in 1619 and that Black people make up an indisputable part of the state's history.
"Our story is totally woven into the story of America," she said.