Frances Walker-Slocum Papers | Oberlin College Archives

Walker-Slocum, Frances (1924-2018)

Frances Walker-Slocum was born on March 6, 1924 in Washington, D.C. She began her music training at the age of four and one-half. After four years of private study, her parents enrolled her in the junior division of the Music Department at Howard University. There she studied piano and theory until her graduation from Dunbar High School in 1941. In this year, she also gave her first full recital in the Howard University Chapel, Washington, D.C.

At the age of five, Walker-Slocum was severely injured when her dress caught fire. The burns she received from this fire made her early life difficult. After a year-long hospitalization and multiple surgeries, her right arm remained shorter and weaker than her left arm. She pushed herself to overcome this handicap and developed her piano technique to enable her to play the piano with power and speed. She and her brother, composer George Walker (O.C. ‘41, honorary D.M., 1983), grew up in a home embodying strict discipline and control. Their father Dr. George Theophilus Walker (1874-1952), a Jamaican immigrant, emphasized accomplishment and excellence at a time when minorities may have received less encouragement. Their mother, Rosa King Walker (1889-1960), who worked at the Government Printing Office, also leant her support.

When Frances Walker entered the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 1941, Oberlin was the only place an African American could earn an undergraduate degree in music. After graduating in 1945 as a Pi Kappa Lambda member, with a major in piano and organ, she studied for a year at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. Her long and distinguished teaching career began in 1947-48 at Barber-Scotia College in Concord, North Carolina; in the following year, she joined the faculty at Tougaloo College in Tougaloo, Mississippi (1948-49), where she met Henry Chester Slocum (O.C. ‘48). At that time, Mississippi state laws blocked inter-racial marriages, and the Slocums were forced to leave Tougaloo. After marrying in New York City, she studied at Columbia University Teachers’ College, receiving the M.A. in 1952 and the Professional Diploma in 1971 for having completed credit requirements; she did not, however, complete a dissertation to earn the Doctorate degree from Columbia University. For seven years (1957-1964) she was a piano instructor at the Third Street Settlement School in New York City. She returned to academia when she was named pianist-in-residence at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, 1968 to 1972. Four years later, in 1972, she was appointed Assistant Professor of Piano at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. She remained a faculty member at Rutgers during her first years on the faculty at Oberlin, while her husband worked as the Vice President of the Equitable Life Assurance Company in New York City, leaving only after his death in June 1980.

Frances Walker-Slocum made her musical debut at Carnegie Hall in New York City in 1959, where she performed Liszt, Rachmaninoff, and Chopin, among others. She considered herself a performer and concentrated her efforts on performing, especially during the 1970s and 1980s. She played many times in New York City, namely with the orchestra in Carnegie Hall, five concerts in Carnegie Recital Hall (most notable being the 1975 Concert of Black American Composers), the Abraham Goodman Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the old Times Hall, two concerts in Town Hall, the Brooklyn Museum, radio broadcasts on WNYC and WQXR, and many other recitals too numerous to mention.  She made a tour of the NYC Community Colleges, three concerts at Kennedy Center, including one in the main hall as a Bicentennial Concert representing the State of New Jersey. Walker-Slocum also performed recitals at the Phillips Collection, the Corcoran Art Gallery, and several concerts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.  Two tours of Europe led her to the major halls in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, and, in 1981, a tour of the Amerika Hauser in Germany (part of the Frankfort concert was televised). In touring the cities in Germany, she was considered by some the good-will Ambassador for the United States and Oberlin College was acknowledged. In 1985, in addition to returning to play at Carnegie Recital Hall, she was accepted into the Ohio Arts Council Touring Program and received from the United States Information Agency formal support to perform when traveling. In August 1990, she performed and lectured at Manila and Cebu in the Philippines.

On the basis of a review of one of the above referenced New York City recitals, Frances Walker-Slocum was invited to Oberlin to perform in January 1976. Shortly thereafter she was appointed to the Oberlin Conservatory faculty as Visiting Associate Professor of Pianoforte for 1976-1977. She held a replacement appointment (for Leon Bates) and a one-year reappointment in the succeeding years. In 1979 she received tenure as an Associate Professor, followed by promotion to a full professor in November 1981. In 1982-83, Frances Walker-Slocum was on sabbatical during the first semester. In 1985-86, she was Departmental Chairman, for the first academic semester. During most of her teaching career at Oberlin, she had to deal with salary equity issues.

Her non-teaching service to the Conservatory and College was notable in many ways.  She was the first black woman in either division to be tenured. In 1983-85, she served as the President of Phi Kappa Lambda. Walker-Slocum chaired the Special Educational Opportunities Program (SEOP), later called SCOPE, for two years, serving on it as a member three years. It fostered minority groups on campus, and she was a spokesperson for minority views on campus throughout her career. In drawing on her own student experience at Oberlin during the 1940s, she spoke out effectively for cultural diversity. In 1985 Oberlin College recommended Frances Walker for consideration for a Lorain County Women of Achievement Award.

Until her retirement in 1991, she was a successful piano teacher with enthusiastic students, many of whom have won significant recognition. Her contacts with her students continued long after their graduation, and in retirement she continued her advisory role at the Conservatory of Music. Simultaneously, she maintained an astonishingly active career as a recitalist both on and off campus. Her frequent performances in major centers worldwide (Europe, New York City, Washington, D.C., and on campuses in the United States) drew critical acclaim. She was praised for her strength, intelligence and love of music as well as her emphasis on music by black composers.

As a performing artist for Orion Records she completed albums of music by Samuel Coleridge Taylor, William Grant Still, Wendell Logan, and many lesser know minority composers.

Her career as a teacher and performer brought her accolades from many organizations; most notably she was honored for her contribution to music by the National Association of Negro Musicians in New York City in 1979 and in Southfield, Michigan in 1985. In 2004, she was awarded the Alumni Medal from Oberlin College.

Frances Walker-Slocum lived in Oberlin during her retirement. She stopped playing piano in the late 1990s after developing rheumatoid arthritis in her hands. She died at the age of 94 on June 9, 2018. She is survived by her son, Jeffrey Slocum, a granddaughter, and two great-granddaughters.

Sources Consulted

Oberlin College Archives

            Frances Walker-Slocum faculty file (RG 28).

            Frances Walker-Slocum case file.

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