Late Gloucester African-American trailblazer Walker was sometimes called “Black Governor of Virginia”

by Larry Chowning – 

Thomas Calhoun (T.C.) Walker was born an enslaved child in Gloucester County and died in 1953 having made an enormous impact on the future of African-Americans in Virginia and beyond.

Born June 16, 1862, in a small cabin on a plantation in Gloucester, Walker was raised by his former owner’s son Lt. William J. Baytop and his wife. They did not have children and convinced Walker’s parents to allow them to raise him.

Walker was later returned to his family on the request of his father and his long journey as an advocate of the Black community and civil rights began.

Walker was not taught as a child to read and write. He finally learned to read after a Sunday school teacher gave him a spelling book entitled “John’s Common Book.”

Determined to be educated, Walker in 1880, at the age of 18, saved 92 cents, enough to get him to Hampton Institute to gain a higher education. He failed the college’s entrance exam but persuaded General Samuel J. Armstrong, the school’s founder, to make an exception.

Armstrong granted the exception as long as Walker participated in a work/study program attending classes at night and working on campus during the day.

With help from white former Confederate officers, Maj. Benjamin F. Bland and General William B. Taliaferro, Walker began studying law in 1883 and soon passed the Virginia bar. On passing the bar, Taliaferro invited him to be his law partner.

Walker was the first Black to practice law in Gloucester County and was a civil rights spokesman who vigorously advocated education and land ownership for Blacks.

Walker was elected for two terms to Gloucester’s Board of Supervisors, serving from 1891-1895. President Franklin Roosevelt appointed him as the only Black to the Work Progress Administration (WPA) as a consultant and advisor on negro affairs in 1934 to the Virginia Emergency Relief Administration. This appointment earned him the nickname “Black Governor of Virginia.”

In 1896, President William McKinley appointed Walker as the first Black custom port collector for the Port of Tappahannock and he later declined an appointment offered him by Theodore Roosevelt as consul general for the Caribbean Island of Guadeloupe. At the age of 90, he was active in the successful 1952 campaign of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Walker was constantly proactive in looking for ways to help Blacks. He was active in placement programs for orphaned Black children and legally adopted several himself. He worked with state governors to create the State Board of Charities and Corrections and assisted in drafting the first legislation to create the juvenile justice system in Virginia.

He persuaded the Works Progress Administrations (WPA) Writers’ Project to include writings from interviews of former slaves, which is one of the best accounts available today from the voices of former slaves.

Walker was active in the education of Blacks and the Thomas Calhoun Walker Education Center is named in his honor along with The T.C. Walker and Woodville Rosenwald School Foundation.

Walker encouraged philanthropist Julius Rosenwald to invest in the construction of Black schools in Gloucester County. Seven were built in Gloucester, including the last one standing, Woodville School, located on Route 17.

T.C. Walker was a great man for his time who laid building blocks that have resulted in better standards and quality of life for the generations — Black and white! 

Mural of T.C. Walker is a Main Street focal point

Honoring one of Gloucester County’s greatest sons, a mural was recently completed on Gloucester’s Main Street depicting the life of T.C. Walker, widely known as Virginia’s “Black Governor.”

Thomas Calhoun (T.C.) Walker was born a slave and grew up to become the first African-American to practice law in Gloucester County.

Artist Michael Rosato began the process with a sketch and created the mural that follows Walker’s narrative from slavery to his prominence in later life.

“It’s the life story of T.C. Walker and starts when he was a boy, a child, until he reaches his later years,” said Rosato. “It’s a remarkable story. My goal with the mural is to get you to really know, on a more in-depth level, all the things that made T.C. Walker, T.C. Walker.”

The mural spans the entire side of a brick building next to Gloucester’s former Texaco station. The highly detailed work of art raises awareness, improves the quality of life for local residents, encourages pride in the community and recognizes the remarkable journey of Walker’s life that serves as a tremendous example of determination and accomplishment.