She was hospitalized for a year, during which she underwent several operations, ultimately leaving her right arm shorter and weaker than the left, and its movement hindered.

That same year, after graduating from Dunbar High School, Walker-Slocum entered the Oberlin Conservatory of Music where she studied piano and organ.

[2] She graduated in 1945 as a member of Pi Kappa Lambda,[3] after which she studied for a year at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In 1972, she was appointed as an assistant professor of Piano at Rutgers University, where she remained a faculty member until her husband's death in June 1980.

Other notable performances include concerts at the Kennedy Center, the Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Museum, New York City Town Hall, and the National Gallery of Art,[7] as well as two European tours to major halls in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, and the Amerika Hauser in Germany.