SOURCE: Walker Alexander, Margaret, and Kay Bonetti. “An Interview with Margaret Walker Alexander.” The Missouri Review 15, no. 1 (1992): 112-31.

In the following interview, Walker touches on the differences between writers of the Harlem Renaissance and the protest writers of the 1930s, her relationship with Richard Wright and her copyright disputes with the Wright estate, writer Alex Haley, and the origins of Jubilee.

Of special note: In what is being called a landmark decision on “fair use,” the U.S. Court of Appeals in November, 1991, ruled against the Richard Wright estate, who had sued Margaret Walker and Warner Books over her use in the biography of letters, journal entries, and an earlier essay she had written about Wright.

This interview was conducted by Kay Bonetti, Director of the American Audio Prose Library.

[Bonetti]: Ms. Walker, when you were a teenager, after you'd finished two years of college in New Orleans...