The River Niger (Author Biography)

Author Biography

Joseph A. Walker made a name for himself in the 1970s with his dramatic stage plays highlighting the struggles of African-American men in a white-dominated, racist society. Walker was born on February 23, 1935, in Washington, D.C., to Joseph (a house painter) and Florine Walker. In 1956, Walker graduated from Howard University, where he majored in philosophy and minored in drama. From 1956 to 1960, Walker was in the United States Air Force, reaching the rank of first lieutenant before being discharged.

While in the Air Force, the experience of being teased by a white fellow Air Force member for writing poetry inspired Walker to quit the armed forces and devote himself to the craft of writing. In the one-paragraph “Joe Walker’s Autobiography,” which prefaces The River Niger, Walker explains, “I started to become a professional philosopher, whatever that means, changed my mind on account of I got what you may stuffily call an artistic temperament and I like to do my thinking through plays and things.”

In 1963, Walker earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Catholic University. He then turned to teaching, first in a Washington, D.C., high school and later at City College of New York. His first marriage, to Barbara Brown, ended in divorce in 1965, and was followed by his marriage to Dorothy A. Dinroe in 1970. From 1970 to 1971, Walker was playwright-in-residence at Yale University. He returned to Howard University, where he became a full professor of drama.

Walker’s first play, The Harangues, was staged by the Negro Ensemble Company in 1970, and was followed by Ododo in 1971. Walker’s most critically acclaimed work, The River Niger (1972), garnered numerous distinguished drama awards, including an Obie Award, an Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award, the Dramatist Guild’s Elizabeth Hull-Kate Award, First Annual Audelco Award, John Gassner Award from Outer Circle, Drama Desk Award, and the Black Rose Award. Walker also wrote the screenplay adaptation of The River Niger, which was produced by Cine Arts in 1976, starring Cicely Tyson and James Earl Jones.

Walker has appeared as an actor in stage productions of A Raisin in the Sun and Once in a Lifetime; in the movies April Fools (1969), and Bananas (1971); and in an award-winning episode of the popular TV show N Y.P.D.

Walker was also the co-founder and artistic director of the dance-music theater repertory company The Demi-Gods.