Project 1937, The Jabberwock’s special publication, was published in print this past week at school. It is now available to read online at issuu.com/mlwgsjabberwock. More stories and photos can also be found at Instagram.com/mlwgsjabberwock.
In the 1960s and 70s, Maggie L. Walker High School was one of two all-Black high schools in Richmond, when the city’s school system was still segregated. It was home to thousands of students and one of the best football teams in the region. Today, things couldn’t be more different. Despite having one of the country’s best academic programs, the school struggles with diversity and inclusion. In the past five years, Maggie Walker has admitted seven times more white students than Black students. “It hurts. It’s very unfair, what they did to this school,” one 1970 alumnus, Earl Hughes, said.
There is a lot of history—and a lot of hurt—behind our beloved school, and this publication aims to cover the past that hasn’t been told and the future it still has in store, through more than a dozen interviews over the course of three months of reporting.
As the writer James Baldwin said, we love Maggie Walker more than any other school in the world, and it is exactly for this reason we insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.
