In Richmond, Virginia we toured the home of a woman who truly lived before her time, a visionary who struggled to blaze a trail for generations who came after her to follow.
Maggie L. Walker was born during the Civil War on July 15, 1864, in the Richmond home of Elizabeth Van Lew, where her mother worked as a housekeeper. At that time, Richmond was the Capital of the Confederacy. Van Lew was a dedicated abolitionist and leader of a large network of Union spies.
Walker’s mother, Elizabeth Draper, was a former slave and her father was an Irish immigrant named Eccles Cuthbert. Forbidden to marry by Virginia race laws, the couple drifted apart and Elizabeth Draper later married another former slave named William Mitchell. He was the only father Maggie Walker ever knew, and they were close until he was murdered in 1876. After his death, Maggie’s mother supported her family by working as a laundress.
Watching her mother struggle every day to keep a roof over her children’s heads and food on the table convinced Maggie of the value of both hard work and an education. In a time when many black children had little or no schooling, she managed to graduate from high school in 1883…