Wyatt Tee Walker, who served as executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) from 1960 to 1964, first met Martin Luther King, Jr. during the 1950s when both men were divinity school students. Like King, Walker was part of a generation of young, activist ministers who would go on to become leaders in the civil rights movement.
Born in 1929 in Brockton, Massachusetts, Wyatt attended primary and secondary schools in Merchantville, New Jersey. After earning a bachelor’s degree in 1950 from Virginia Union University in Richmond, Virginia, he enrolled in the school’s seminary. While attending an inter-seminary meeting, he formed a friendship with King, who was then a student at Crozer Theological Seminary.
Walker received his Master of Divinity degree in 1953 and became pastor of Gillfield Baptist Church in Petersburg, Virginia. He served as president of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and state director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). He was also a founder of the Petersburg Improvement Association, an organization modeled after the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). In 1958, Walker joined the board of King’s fledgling Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and began building support for SCLC in Virginia .
In 1960, King asked Walker to become the executive director of SCLC. After negotiations concerning his salary and authority within the organization, Walker left his post at Gillfield for SCLC’s Atlanta office. Walker brought with him two close assistants from the Petersburg Improvement Association, Dorothy Cotton and James Wood. A firm administrator, Walker worked to bring order to the organization’s fundraising efforts and the wide-ranging activities of its staff. Walker was also a key tactician, authoring and evaluating protest strategies, including “Project C,” the basis for SCLC’s Birmingham Campaign in 1963.
SCLC benefited from Walker’s direction on organizational structure and strategy, but his heavy-handed leadership style fueled staff tensions. Walker left SCLC in 1964 to work as a marketing specialist for a new publishing venture, the Negro Heritage Library. Two years later, he became president of the organization, which sought to increase the attention paid to black history in school curricula.
Since 1967, Walker has been pastor of Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem. In 1975, he received his Ph.D. from Colgate-Rochester Divinity School in 1975. An authority on gospel music, Walker has published several works on the relationship between music, the black religious tradition, and social change.