Walker says she has no regrets about her decision, but she is troubled by allegations that she set a bad example for young black women. And she is quick to deromanticize single motherhood, even for someone with a loving family, a lot of friends and plenty of money. “it was still difficult. As Nicholas grew, I had a lot of decisions to make, alone.” Two years ago, she married Harry Graham, 41, a lawyer with two children of his own from another marriage. “Finding Harry,” Walker says succinctly, “was the best thing that happened to me and Nicholas.”
While she’s lauded for her volunteering, these days Walker concentrates on being a role model for her children. “We grew up and saw, were a part of the civil-rights struggle,” Walker says. “We want to make the struggle real for them in some way more than just a book.” But, the couple has been dismayed to discover, even life in the affluent, mostly white suburb of Chestnut Hill carries its own hard lessons.
Sitting in her well-appointed kitchen, with 5-year-old Nicholas in her lap, Walker recalls a taunt a playmate hurled at her son recently. “He said. ‘We’re going to kick your black bad word’,” she says, euphemizing. Nicholas solemnly points to his butt. “Why did he know that [race-laden phrase] was a weapon?” Prosperity, Walker and Graham have learned, is a poor shield against racism. “You can’t succeed your way out of it,” she says.
As uneasy as she is with suburban life, Walker sees no alternative. “We can’t drive through Roxbury,” she says. “We see violence, drugs, babies having babies.” Still, the notion that she might be deserting her community worries her. “We don’t know what the answers are.” she says, “We all volunteer. But a lot of the voices of the black community felt compelled to leave.” A Roxbury lawyer “just moved up the street. His moving out of the community got a lot of attention. But his wife was mugged. To what point,” she asks, “do you sacrifice?”
