Family reflects on grandfather’s legacy after 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre

From left to right: Yolanda Walker Simmons and Patricia Walker Bearden, the granddaughters of Alex Walker, a Black man who was convicted of killing, a white police officer, during the 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre. The sisters discuss the backstory on “Closer Look.” ( Photo courtesy of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights)

Patricia Walker Bearden and Yolanda Walker Simmons can still recall the passed-down stories of their late grandfather, Alex Wesley Walker. 

The sisters said on the night of the 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre, their grandfather, who worked as a bellman at the Kimball House Hotel in Atlanta, rushed home to his house located in Brownsville, a middle-class Black neighborhood in south Atlanta.

A white mob pursued him, and he had to protect his family and pregnant wife.