Margaret Walker Alexander--poet, novelist, literary scholar, educator--died on November 30, 1998, following a long illness. Born Margaret Abigail Walker in 1915 in Birmingham, Alabama, she earned a B.A. from Northwestern University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Iowa. In 1942 For My People, her first book, was published in the Yale Series of Younger Poets. In 1949 she moved to Mississippi and joined the English faculty at Jackson State University, where she taught until her retirement in 1979. There, in 1968, she founded the Institute for the Study of History, Life, and Culture of Black People, later named the Margaret Walker Alexander National Research Center for the Study of the 20th Century African American in her honor. A branch library and the street where she lived in Jackson are also named in her honor. Her novel Jubilee was published in 1966 and became an international best seller. Her other books include How I Wrote Jubilee, October Journey, Richard Wright: Daemonic Genius, and This Is My Century: New and Collected Poetry. She was married for 37 years to the late Firnist James Alexander Sr. and is survived by two daughters, two sons, and nine grandchildren.