Businesswoman, educator, and civil rights activist. The first woman in the US to found a bank and to serve as its president.

Maggie Lena Walker was born in Richmond, Virginia. Her mother was a former slave, and her biological father was Irish. After her stepfather had died, her mother worked as a laundress, and Walker helped her deliver clothes to their white clients. Then, she became aware of the differences between the quality of life of white and African-Americans.

As a teenager, she started volunteering at the local chapter of the Independent Order of St. Luke. An organization dedicated to empowering African-Americans socially and financially.

After graduating high school and being trained as a teacher, she taught at the Lancasterian School for three years. She had to leave her job after marrying Armstead Walker Jr. since the school’s policy prohibited employing married women.

Walker focused her time and efforts on raising her family and the Order, serving in several roles, and receiving more responsibility and leadership positions. At 31, she was appointed Grand Deputy Matron and established the Order’s Juvenile Branch, providing community services and education for its young members.

In 1899, at 35, Walker became the Order’s grand secretary – the highest administrative position in the organization, which she held for the rest of her life. She founded a community insurance company for women and the Order’s newspaper, St. Luke Herald, in 1902. She founded and served as the first president of the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank in 1903, becoming the first woman in the US to do so. By 1924, the bank served more than 50,000 members in 1,500 local chapters in Virginia, West Virginia, Massachusetts, and Maryland. Walker managed to protect the bank during the Great Depression, and by 1930 the bank integrated with all other African-American-owned banks in Richmond. It was renamed the Consolidated Bank and Trust Company, and Walker served as chairman of its board. In all of the Order’s business, Walker employed mainly African-Americans and promoted social change, educational opportunities, and economic empowerment with higher wages and job opportunities.

In addition to her work at the Order, Walker co-founded the Richmond Council of Colored Women and led various organizations, including the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), the Richmond chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Virginia Industrial School for Girls.

She passed away at the age of 70.

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“I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth but with a clothes basket almost upon my head. I have come upon the rough side of the mountain.”

Fun Facts

She encouraged the young population to save their money for the future, and the bank served children.
In her last years, due to diabetic complications, she had to use a wheelchair and installed an elevator in her home.
In 1905, she was featured in a poster titled- “101 Prominent Colored People.”
She had four children. Three sons and an adopted daughter.
In 1914, her son shot and killed his father, mistaking him for a burglar.
She was one of eight women featured in “The Only One in the Room.” A display at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in 2020.
In 2017, the city of Richmond dedicated a statue in her honor at the Maggie Lena Walker Memorial Plaza.
Her home at 110 1/2 East Leigh Street Richmond, Virginia, has been designated a National Historic Site and a museum celebrating her life and legacy.
Her office in the St. Luke Building is preserved as it was when she died in 1934.
Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School for Government and International Studies is named in her honor.
She is one of the 12 prominent Virginian women who are honored with a statue at the Voices from the Garden: The Virginia Women's Monument in the Virginia state Capitol.
In 1904, fifty years before the Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott, she led the successful boycott of the Virginia Passenger and Power Company against their segregation policy.
Following the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote, she organized a voter registration drive to help more than 2,400 African-American women register to vote.