'He wanted to have equity for everybody': Chesterfield names library after Wyatt Tee Walker

ENON — Had he lived to see it, the daughter of a local legend in the Civil Rights Movement says she thinks her dad would enjoy seeing his name on a library.

"My dad was a Leo the Lion," Patrice Walker Powell said. "He was proudly a man of the people and a man of God."

Powell and other members of Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker's family joined local leaders Friday morning at a ceremony naming the future Enon library branch in his memory. A bond referendum will be voted on next month in Chesterfield County that would fund construction of a new and larger facility to replace the current building on Enon Church Road.

Powell called the naming a "tribute" fitting for Walker, a former director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, former president of the Petersburg NAACP and a close adviser of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He is probably best known in Petersburg for leading a 1960 sit-in by Black residents of Petersburg to fight segregation of the former Petersburg Public Library, a move that closed the library for four days and sparked a series of events that led to the eventual desegregation of the facility later that year.

"My father loved people," Powell said, "and he really wanted to have equity for everybody. So a library is one of the best places to make that available."

Speakers at Friday's dedication ceremony lauded Walker for his service both in the pulpit and on the ground during the Civil Rights Movement.

"When I speak to people, I talk about walking in the footsteps of giants," William McGee, president of the central Virginia SCLC and a family friend, said. "Wyatt Tee Walker was one of those giants, and I had the privilege of walking in his footsteps and hearing him."

McGee said that instead of sharing the national spotlight with King, Walker preferred staying in the background and executing the mission that King and others championed.

Cynthia Hudson, a member of the Virginia NAACP and chairperson of the Commission to Examine Racial Inequity in Virginia Law, called Walker "a true titan of the Civil Rights Movement, on whose shoulders, among others, I and many of us have stood." She also praised Walker for his push to increase awareness of Black history in school curricula.

"There are many who would say as we stand here ... and I am among them ... nearly 60 years later that that goal has not yet been fully realized," Hudson said. "But this honor that we recognize today is a bold and important step toward recognizing and maintaining focus on that need."

Chesterfield Board of Supervisors chairman Chris Winslow called Walker "an icon of humanity." He cited a 1982 book written by Walker titled, "Somebody's Calling My Name."

"Today, we're calling the name of Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker in gratitude and in imperpetuity, as we dedicate and name this future library after a man whose life and body of work honored all of humanity," Winslow said.

The ceremony concluded with the unveiling of a sign at the front door of the current library memorializing Walker's achievements. Officials said that sign eventually will be moved to the still-unchosen site of the new Enon library.

Walker died in 2018 at the age of 89.

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Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on Twitter at @BAtkinson_PI.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Chesterfield County renames library for local civil rights leader