About Bishop John T. Walker
The Right Reverend John Thomas Walker championed the foundational belief that education was the door to opportunity. Walker shaped, influenced, and witnessed the course of history from his entrance into Virginia Theological Seminary as the first African American student to being the First Bishop of Color to lead the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. Walker advocated for racial justice and the ending of South African apartheid, and worked alongside the U.S. Federal Government, and D.C., and state governments.
Virginia Theological Seminary Class of 1954
As the first teacher of African American descent at St. Paul 's School, Concord, New Hampshire, he taught and organized the education of the world's elite as well as the nation's most easily forgotten children. As a priest of the church, he drew on his own challenging life experiences, growing up in Georgia, to explain why he worked unceasingly, to assure that future generations of African American students would find the doors of every educational institution in America open to them. Often working behind the scenes, he shared his radical belief — with presidents, world leaders, and the ordinary people — that our broken world can yet be restored. He always remembered the children and their role in our world's future.