Randolph-Macon College honors colleague of King
Rev. Wyatt T. Walker was King's chief of staff, SCLC executive director
January 16, 2008 (Cynthia McMullen, Richmond Times Dispatch)
Had he lived, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have turned 79 yesterday.
The Rev. Wyatt T. Walker, King's chief of staff, will turn 79 in August.
They were close in age but even closer in their unrelenting pursuit of a vision.
In a tribute to King's life at Randolph-Macon College yesterday, Walker was recognized for his commitment to human rights.
Walker marched with King during the civil-rights movement and was the first full-time executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Accepting a plaque from R-MC President Robert R. Lindgren, Walker smiled and said: "I probably won't win the Nobel Peace Prize. But this will do."
Walker also took the opportunity to kid the tribute's keynote speaker, Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder, who celebrates his 77th birthday tomorrow.
Walker, who lives in Chester, graduated from Virginia Union University in 1950. Wilder graduated a year later.
"I didn't have a clue you would become governor," said Walker, "and you probably didn't have a clue I'd become a minister. God works in mysterious ways."
Wilder leaned on the arm of Walker's wheelchair while Lindgren introduced the mayor. (Walker, whom King praised in 1968 as "a tall man, tall in stature, tall in courage," said he uses a wheelchair as a result of a series of strokes.)
Rising to speak, Wilder looked at his friend and laughed. "He's shocked and surprised that I would amount to anything at all," he said.
As far as civil rights go, Wilder said, it's an ongoing struggle. But King and Walker, he said, made him see the possibilities.
Yesterday's tribute, with an audience of about 450, closed with a recitation of King's "I Have a Dream" speech by Waddell Howard Jr., an R-MC junior from Afton.
Afterward -- echoing Wilder's statement of support for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama -- Walker said, "With Obama, we're making a move toward that dream."
If Obama wins, he said, "It won't be our dream, it will be America's dream." Contact Cynthia McMullen at (804) 649-6361 or cmcmullen@timesdispatch.com .