Her research as a clinical psychologist has focused on African American health disparities, and as a womanist theologian she has written about the myth of the "StrongBlackWoman" and the need for the voices of women of color.
[2] Her parents, Wali Sharif and Laquitta Walker, met when they were in one of the first groups of Black students to integrate their school in Atlanta.
[3][4][5] Walker-Barnes worked as a research psychologist, focusing on ethnic minority families, African American adolescent development and health disparities.
[7] In 2019, she facilitated the Writing for Mystic Activists workshop for the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research.
[5] Walker-Barnes' book Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength talks about what she calls "Strong Black Woman Syndrome", a cultural stereotype that initially developed as a defense against negative stereotypes of African American women - "the manipulative Jezebel, the Mammy, the Sapphire" - but leads to the burdensome expectation that black women be "super capable ... take care of others ... [and] emotionally strong to the point of stoicism.
"[4] She calls out churches for perpetuating and spiritualizing the stereotype, which has had negative physical and mental health consequences.
[4] Her 2019 book I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation points out the inadequacy of the contemporary white evangelical approach to racial reconciliation and proposes an alternative,[10] drawing on the work of womanist, feminist, and Black liberation theologians including James Cone and J. Deotis Roberts.