Natasha Trethewey project inspired by ‘For My People’ by alumna Margaret Walker Alexander ’35

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day English professor Natasha Trethewey, two-time U.S. Poet Laureate and recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2007, introduced a special collaborative remix of the seminal poem “For My People,” a civil rights anthem written in 1937 by Northwestern alumna Margaret Walker Alexander.

In 1935, Walker graduated from the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. She was the first Black writer to win the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize.

Watch Trethewey’s “Remix: For My People” below:

Learn more about Trethewey’s project in the Northwestern Now story, “Natasha Trethewey project a remix of civil rights anthem.”

Meet Professor Natasha Trethewey

Related:

• Natasha Trethewey Poem “Repentance” Featured in The New Yorker
• A Play About Race and Memory, With Fresh Wounds All Around
• The Exchange: Natasha Trethewey
• 22^nd Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities, Heinz Family Foundation (2017)