Margaret Walker Alexander was born Margaret Abigail Walker on July 7, 1915, in Birmingham, Alabama. Her bestseller about a daughter of a slave, Jubilee, is her best known work, that and "For My People," a poem that won the Yale Award for Young Poets in 1942. In 1988 she sued Alex Haley for 'infringed on' the copyright of Jubilee, but the case was dismissed. In that same year she published a biography and critical study of Richard Wright and his writing.
She died of cancer in Chicago on November 30, 1998.

A list of her fiction and her poetry:
"For My People" (1942, a poem)
Jubilee, (1966, a novel)
The Ballad of the Free (1966, poetry)
Prophets for a New Day, (1970, poetry)
October Journey, (1973)
For Farish Street Green, February 27, 1986, (1986, poetry)
Richard Wright, Daemonic Genius, (1988, biography)
This is My Century: New and Collected Poems, (1989, poetry)

A list of her nonfiction:

A Poetic Equation: Conversations Between Nikki Giovanni and Margaret Walker, (1974)
Richard Wright, Daemonic Genius: A Portrait of the Man, A Critical Look at His Work, (1988)
How I Wrote Jubilee and Other Essays on Life and Literature, (1990)
On Being Female, Black, and Free: Essays by Margaret Walker, 1932-1992, (1997)