Maggie Lena (née Draper Mitchell) Walker (July 15, 1864 – December 15, 1934) was an American businesswoman and teacher.

[4][3]: 1–2  Draper was employed by Elizabeth Van Lew, an abolitionist and philanthropist who had been a spy for the Union during the Civil War (1861–1865) in the Confederate capital city of Richmond.

[4][3]: 1–2  Draper married William Mitchell, a butler at the Van Lew estate, soon after Maggie Walker's birth.

Walker attended the newly formed Richmond Public Schools and helped her mother by delivering clean clothes.

The Independent Order of St. Luke ministered to the sick and aged, promoted humanitarian causes, and provided long-term economic and social support in the post-slavery, Reconstruction-era United States by acting cooperatively to provide African Americans with access to education, healthcare, banking, and insurance, among other services.

The black seniors protested at the split graduation and the choice of a church as their venue, and their principal informed them they could only combine events if seating was segregated.

[9] The Woman's Union (WU) was a cooperative organization of women engaged in businesses to meet the needs of Richmond Virginia's black community.

[10] She served in numerous capacities of increasing responsibility for the Order, from that of a delegate to the biannual convention to the top leadership position of Right Worthy Grand Secretary in 1899.

[7] Walker saved the Independent Order of St. Luke from the brink of collapse after the financial mismanagement of its previous leader, William Forester, doubling the number of members within her first year at the top.

[3] Walker's social change activities with the Independent Order of St. Luke demonstrated her keen consciousness of oppression and her dedication to challenge racial and gender injustice.

[11] A pioneering insurance executive, financier and civic icon, she established the Juvenile Branch of the Order in 1895 while serving as grand deputy matron.

The first issue decried Jim Crow laws, a discriminatory justice system, and the restriction of public school privileges.

[8] She established and maintained a Community House in Richmond, helped recruit and keep a visiting nurse, and advised the Piedmont Sanitorium for black people with tuberculosis in Burkeville, Virginia.

In 1905, Walker was featured alongside other African-American leaders such as Mary Church Terrell, T. Thomas Fortune, and George Washington Carver, in a poster titled "101 Prominent Colored People".

She also served as trustee to the National Training School in Washington D.C.[8] She was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 2001.

[16] Walker's image was included in the 1945 painting Women Builders by William H. Johnson as part of his Fighters for Freedom series.

It was totally refurbished to reopen in 2001 as the regional Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies.

She achieved success in the world of business and finance as the first woman in the United States to charter and serve as president of a bank, despite the many adversities.

The site includes a visitor center detailing her life and the Jackson Ward community in which she lived and worked and her residence of thirty years.

[25] The Washington Post noted that the bronze, 10-foot statue depicts Walker "as she lived — her glasses pinned to her lapel, a checkbook in hand.