Song of My Life: A Biography of Margaret Walker

[Brown] describes her early struggles and later triumphs and, in doing so, endears Walker the daughter, the sister, the student, and the young woman to readers. Seretha D. Williams, The Journal of Mississippi History

Song of My Life: A Biography of Margaret Walker is a beautifully written portrait of one of the great figures in southern literature. Margaret Walker excelled as a writer, teacher, and mother during her long, productive life. Carolyn Brown offers a unique window on Walker and helps us understand both her struggles and her impressive achievements. William R. Ferris, author of The Storied South: Voices of Writers and Artists

Carolyn Brown's biography of Margaret Walker is a rich and timely addition to the scholarship and general public appreciation and understanding of one of the great American authors of the twentieth century. Over the course of her life and career, Margaret Walker produced indelible literary creations like her award-winning poem 'For My People' and her celebrated novel Jubilee, but she also stood at the heart of the Black Arts Movement and a nascent Black Studies Movement. As Brown shows us, committed to both the arts and activism, Walker founded the Institute for the Study of the History, Life, and Culture of Black People (now named in her honor) at Jackson State University, where she spent thirty years on the faculty, in order to guarantee the preservation, interpretation, and dissemination of the African American experience. Passing on the mentorship she received from the likes of Langston Hughes and Richard Wright, Walker lifted a new generation of artists into prominence, from Sonia Sanchez and James Baldwin to Amiri Baraka and Toni Morrison. Now, Brown has helped lift Walker into the national consciousness, where she so richly deserves to belong. Robert Luckett, director of the Margaret Walker Center, Jackson State University

Song of My Life is a timely reminder of Walker's importance to the South and to the nation in the century that she did not live to see. Opening up discussions that too many might think old-fashioned, like family loyalty and intellectual honesty, for example, Carolyn Brown has given us a book for all ages--sensitively written, preserving the integrity of the subject, and painfully accurate. The documentary format brings us directly to Walker as if she were still with us. I highly recommend this book, especially for anyone who has never heard of Margaret Walker. Maryemma Graham, editor of Fields Watered with Blood: Critical Essays on Margaret Walker