Reviews

Booklist – May 15 2023

Watson shines a long-overdue spotlight on the extraordinary life of Maggie Lena Walker, who worked tirelessly for the benefit of Black women and families in the wake of the Civil War as leader of the Independent Order of St. Luke. Determined to see economic justice and equality for her fellow residents in a Black enclave of Richmond, Virginia, Walker led a city-wide boycott of segregated streetcars and founded a newspaper, a department store, and, most notably, the St.Luke Penny Savings Bank, becoming the first African American woman to charter a bank and serve as its president.

Her single-minded determination never wavered in the face of racism and sexism in the Jim Crow South or such personal hardships as the accidental death of her husband at her son’s hands. Watson concentrates on Walker as an historical figure, enthusiastically providing a wealth of information about her many achievements. A good match for fans of Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray’s The Personal Librarian (2021) and Tracey Enerson Wood’s The Engineer’s Wife (2020).
— Lindsay Harmon