Walker Business College

Walker Business College, also known as Walker Business College for Colored,[1] and Walker's Commercial and Vocational College,[2] was a former business school and vocational school specifically for African Americans which was founded c. 1916 and closed c. 1967,[3][2] and located in Jacksonville, Duval County, Florida, and later Macon, Georgia.[2][4][3] The school advertised as, "the largest colored business college in the United States".[1]

Not to be confused with the Walker College of Business at Appalachian State University.
Walker Business College
Students of Walker Business College, c. 1916
Location
Jacksonville, Florida,
Macon, Georgia
Information
Former namesWalker's Commercial and Vocational College,
Walker Business College for Colored,
Walker's Business College
School typebusiness school, vocational school
Establishedc. 1916
FoundersRichard Wendell Walker,
Julia Walker Brown
Closedc. 1967

History

Richard Wendell Walker was the co-founder and served as the school's first president.[3] Richard Wendell Walker was from Kansas and he had attended Fairmont University in Wichita, and Topeka Business College in Topeka, Kansas.[5] Julia Brown Walker, the spouse of Richard Wendell Walker, was a co-founder and also served as a secretary and president of the school.[6][7][2] Former NAACP president and civil rights activist, Johnnie H. Goodson taught tailoring classes at the school.[8]

Walker Business College offered both day and night classes.[3] The courses at Walker Business College included secretarial training, office machines, bookkeeping, accounting, and insurance.[6] The school also had a trade division and offered courses in upholstering, tailoring, dressmaking, and radio and television.[6]

The college was located at 417-Y2 Broad Street, and later moved to 9th Street and Myrtle Avenue in Jacksonville.[6] It later moved to 319 Broad Street, Jacksonville.[2] In 1929, the school opened a second location in Macon, Georgia.[5]

The Florida State Archives includes a photograph of students at the Walker Business College.[4]

References
  1. Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt (1920). "Walker Business College for Colored". The Crisis. Crisis Publishing Company. 21–22: 39. ISSN 0011-1422.
  2. "Walker's Commercial & Vocational College". The Crisis. The Crisis Publishing Company, Inc. 49 (1): 12, 17–18, 27. January 16, 1942. ISSN 0011-1422 – via Google Books.
  3. Richardson, Clement (June 16, 1919). The National Cyclopedia of the Colored Race. Issue 235 of Black Biographical Dictionaries, 1790–1950. Vol. 1. National Publishing Company. p. 473.
  4. "Students at the Walker Vocational and Commercial College - Jacksonville, Florida". Florida Memory, Florida Department of State.
  5. "Prof. Walker Opens Business College". Newspapers.com. The Macon News. May 26, 1929. p. 9. OCLC 8808946. Retrieved 2022-09-13.
  6. "Spot Light on Dr. Julia Walker Brown at the Ritz Theatre and Museum". Free Press of Jacksonville. November 18, 2015.
  7. Patterson, Homer L. (June 16, 1904). Patterson's American Education. Vol. 59. Educational Directories – via Google Books.
  8. "To Johnnie H. Goodson". The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, Stanford University. 2016-06-01. Retrieved 2022-09-13.
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