Frankye Adams-Johnson Black Panther Party Collection

Jackson, MS—The Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University announces the opening of its newest archival acquisition, the Frankye Adams-Johnson Black Panther Party Collection. The official unveiling will take place on Friday, March 23, from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. in Ayer Hall on the Jackson State campus and will feature a reception and exhibit about the collection.


Adams-Johnson is a noted poet, fiction writer, and playwright. Various literary journals have published her poetry, including A Love Supreme, Poetry in Performance 20, City College, Poem for Daddy Sugahboy, Poetry in Performance 19, City College, and Maw-Maw. At the First Annual National Black Writers Conference of New York in 1986, she received the John Oliver Killens Fiction Award for excerpts from her memoir, Daughter of the Whirlwinds.

Adams-Johnson is a past Chairwoman of the Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, one of the Margaret Walker Center’s partners in Ayer Hall at Jackson State University. The unveiling will be in conjunction with the Veterans’ annual conference and the grand opening of the COFO Civil Rights Education Center.

Both an archive and museum, the Margaret Walker Center is dedicated to the preservation, interpretation, and dissemination of the African-American experience. Founded by Margaret Walker in 1968, the Center seeks to honor her artistic and academic legacy by expanding and promoting its manuscript holdings and oral history collections, interpreting African-American history and culture through its museum and exhibits, coordinating public programs on campus and throughout the community, preserving historic structures central to the African-American experience, and advocating Black Studies at Jackson State University.

For more information, visit the Center’s website at www.jsums.edu/margaretwalker or contact the Center’s staff at 601-979-2055 or mwa@jsums.edu. Contact: Dr. Robert Luckett, Director Margaret Walker Center Jackson State University 601-979-2055 robert.luckett@jsums.edu For Immediate Release March 5, 2012.