Introduction
Born: August 30, Richmond, Virginia.
Baptized: First African Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia.
Died: July 6, 1945, at his home in Washington, DC.
Buried: Lincoln Memorial Cemetery, Suitland, Maryland.
Born: August 30, Richmond, Virginia.
Baptized: First African Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia.
Died: July 6, 1945, at his home in Washington, DC.
Buried: Lincoln Memorial Cemetery, Suitland, Maryland.
Walter was the son of Albert Royal Brooks and Lucy Goode. He married twice, to Evalina Holmes (about 1874) and Viola W. Whipps (1933).
He is remembered as a minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, missionary, temperance leader, orator, poet and hymn writer.
He was educated at Cheeseman’s School, Richmond, Virginia; Wilberforce Institute, Carolina Mills, Rhode Island; Lincoln University, Lower Oxford Township, Pennsylvania (BA 1872 & doctor of laws), and Howard University, Washington, DC (MA & DD).
He served as pastor of the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, DC, 1882–1945.
His hymn Go, Messenger of Christ, Proclaim was published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1898.