Funeral program of William Walker: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

Digital copy of a funeral program for William Walker, survivor of the Tulsa Race Riot. The funeral program consists of black ink printed on a single sheet of cream colored paper, folded once to produce four pages. The first page, or cover, has an illustration of Christ carrying the cross against a bright sun. Text at the top reads [FUNERAL SERVICES FOR / Mr. William Walker]. Text beneath the image has the date and location information. The service took place at Mason Memorial Methodist Church in Kansas City, Kansas, with interment at Quindaro Cemetery. The first interior page has an obituary, which details Walker's birth in Centerville, Mississippi, his life in Tulsa, Oklahoma and his relocation to Kansas City, Kansas after "a serious racial conflict in 1921 at Tulsa" when he "lost practically all his accumulations of many years." The obituary also details Walker's faith and church involvement over the years. The second interior page contains the program for the service, from processional to benediction. The last page, or back cover, lists the pallbearers.

The program is accompanied by a handout about the Vernon A.M.E. Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, printed on black ink on a single sheet of white paper, folded to produce four pages. The first page, or front cover, has a photocopied image of the 1921 Black Wall Street Memorial. At the top is printed the address for Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church, and beneath the image is the caption [Vernon A.M.E. Church is "indelibly" / woven into the historisity of the / Black Wall Street on North Greenwood / ... PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE ...]. The interior pages include a history of the Vernon A.M.E. Church in which William Walker is listed as a charter member when the church was founded in Tulsa in 1905. The history also includes that the Tulsa Race Riot destroyed all but the basement of the church in 1921, as well as lists of pastors and bishops and an image of the church building.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 1963
• Printed by: Unidentified
• Subject of: William Walker, American, 1881 - 1963
• Subject of: Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church, American, founded 1905
• Owned by: Eddie Faye Gates, American, 1934 - 2021
• Type: digital images
• Type: programs
• Type: digital media - born analog
• Medium: digital
• Dimensions: File size (overall): 540.89 MB
• Place collected: Tulsa, Tulsa County, Oklahoma, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: African Methodist Episcopal
• Topic: American South
• Topic: American West
• Topic: Communities
• Topic: Families
• Topic: Funeral customs and rites
• Topic: Methodist
• Object number: 2014.117.62
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Eddie Faye Gates, Tulsa OK, author, historian, community activist
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: No Known Copyright Restrictions Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.