Sustaining Literature at HBCUs
Jackson State and Tuskegee Universities
Intellectual curiosity and free thinking characterize the study of literature at Jackson State and Tuskegee Universities. This academic tradition has been personified in numerous literary figures associated with these universities. Prominent figures at Jackson State University (JSU) include Margaret Walker, poet and novelist, and Kiese Laymon, writer and founder of the Catherine Colemon Literary Arts and Justice Initiative. At Tuskegee University (TU), Albert Murray and Ralph Ellison, both novelists, made lasting impressions.
Writing and literature programs at these institutions expose students to fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Literature courses invite literary analysis and examine the literary history of African Americans. These programs and writers have helped to sustain their universities’ rich literary tradition.
The Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University
Archivist Angela Stewart working in the Margaret Walker Center.
Writer, activist, and professor Margaret Walker founded the Institute for the Study of the History, Life, and Culture of Black People at Jackson State University in 1968. Now called the Margaret Walker Center, this archive and museum preserves the university’s and community’s histories, political and social movements, and Walker's personal papers.
As the “Urban University of the State of Mississippi,” Jackson State University trains researchers and community members. Founded as Natchez Seminary in 1877, it moved to Jackson five years later. It became a teacher’s training college in 1940 and added arts and sciences in the 1950s. Today, Jackson State is one of the largest HBCUs in the country.
Margaret Walker, Writer
Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Margaret Walker Alexander (1915–1998) began a creative writing career in Chicago in the 1930s and became a career educator at Jackson State in Mississippi in 1949. As founder of the university’s Center for the Study of the History, Life, and Culture of Black People, she became a leading figure in the Black Studies Movement.
The personal papers of Margaret Walker at Jackson State University include letters from Walker’s fellow writers as they respectfully share thoughts and ideas. Richard Wright explores the role of imagination in writing. Alice Walker thanks Margaret for making her aware of the little-known Zora Neale Hurston.
Our archives embody ‘the songs of our people.’
Angela D. Stewart, archivist, Margaret Walker Center, Jackson State University, 2024
Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival, 1973 and 2023
In 1973, Jackson State University’s Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival brought together 23 prominent African American women poets. The festival celebrated Phillis Wheatley Peters as the first African American to publish a book of poetry, an accomplishment that challenged myths about the intellectual and literary abilities of Black women. The 1973 festival highlighted creative writings done by Black women during the 1960s.
Fifty years later, the Margaret Walker Center hosted a second poetry festival to elevate the significance of writings by African American women since Wheatley Peters’s time.
Featured Constellation
“Ocean” by Phillis Wheatley Peters
Phillis Wheatley Peters was born in West Africa and enslaved in Massachusetts. In 1773, she published Poems on Various Subjects, which brought her international fame. Her 1779 poem “Ocean” explores her return to the U.S. after traveling to Europe.
The Legendary Writers of Tuskegee University
Albert Murray and Ralph Ellison, 1967
Tuskegee University is a stop on the Southern Literary Trail primarily because of its connection to writers Albert Murray and Ralph Ellison. Murray graduated from Tuskegee in 1939 and returned to teach composition and literature from 1940 to 1943. His time at Tuskegee inspired his memoir South to a Very Old Place (1971) and his coming-of-age novel Train Whistle Guitar (1974). While a student at Tuskegee, he met and later forged a friendship with Ralph Ellison, a music major.
For Ellison, Tuskegee was not only formative in his development as an artist, but also inspirational in developing his greatest work, Invisible Man (1952), which dramatizes concepts of “invisibility” and self-identity.
In 1996, the university’s English department organized the annual Ralph Ellison Lecture to commemorate Ellison’s life and legacy. In 2018, the university installed Albert Murray’s personal library as a permanent collection and titled it “Beyond Category” to reflect Murray’s broad and varied intellectual interests.
Albert Murray
Writer, Educator, and Cultural Critic
Albert Murray in his office, 1980
Writer and cultural critic Albert Murray (1916–2013) left an intellectual legacy that is beyond category. Equipped with a bachelor’s degree in education from Tuskegee Institute, a master’s degree in English from New York University, and a near twenty-year career in the U.S. Air Force, Murray imparted knowledge to thousands of students at numerous universities and published in multiple genres.
Raised near Mobile, Alabama, Murray moved to Harlem after retiring from the military in 1962. After his retirement, he began a prolific career as an author, intellectual, and jazz critic. Murray published essays in major periodicals like Life magazine and the New Leader before publishing his own works, including The Omni-Americans (1970), a book about U.S. race relations, and a memoir, South to a Very Old Place (1971). He later published novels and studies of the blues and jazz. Murray and his protégé Wynton Marsalis were founding members of Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Writers of Vision
After the 1970s Black Arts Movement, writers continued to thrive at HBCUs. But now they challenged the perspectives of preceding years. Women questioned the movement’s patriarchal focus. Southern writers challenged the primacy of the urban Northeast. Poets of diverse sexualities claimed their identities. Immigrant poets argued that Black culture ran throughout the African diaspora.
What Is the Future of Literary Arts at HBCUs?
Jackson State University graduation
Many factors help to ensure a solid future for the literary arts at HBCUs. By investing in graduate and undergraduate creative writing programs, sponsoring literary journals, showcasing student and faculty writings, and hosting conferences and public programs, HBCUs continue to amplify the voices of students, visiting writers, and literary scholars.
HBCU repositories—libraries and archives—acquire book collections by and about writers of the African diaspora and make them accessible to students, faculty, and staff. Such resources enhance learning and cultivate literary appreciation in HBCU campuses and among the broader community.
HBCUs are committed to fostering belonging and cultural relevance that empower students to engage passionately in literary expressions—spoken and written—and literary research and scholarship, building a legacy for future generations of learners.