A new marker for the Springfield-Greene County African-American Heritage Trail was dedicated on the Missouri State University campus Wednesday.
The marker recognizes Mary Jean Price Walls. Walls was the first recorded black resident to apply for admission to what was then SMS University in 1950. Her application was denied. As the marker explains, Walls was never officially notified of her denial and her family were unable to afford to send her away for an education at Lincoln University, the state’s black college in Jefferson City.
Walls stayed in Springfield, cleaned houses and worked as a janitor until she retired in 2009. She raised eight kids, one of whom, Amin Walls, eventually became a student at MSU and began to research his mother’s history. He said his Aunt Shirley used to tell him family stories, but he never knew if they were real. “When I come to campus,” Walls explained, he decided to look into it. He said “Anne Baker, who was the archivist at Meyer Library, she helped me in in this investigation, in this search.”
The research uncovered letters between different public college and university presidents referencing her application, the minutes of a special meeting where it was definitively denied and Walls’ admission letter explaining her situation and lamenting that if denied admission she would have to “abandon (her) ambition.”
Mary Jean Price Walls eventually received an honorary degree from MSU in 2010. The campus Multicultural Resource Center Annex was named in her honor in 2016. She passed in 2020.
Dr. Lyle Foster opened the ceremony by telling the history of the Springfield-Greene County African-American Heritage Trail, which he says plans a total of at least 20 markers noting significant people, places and events in the area’s history. Dr. Foster noted the markers are largely funded by private donations, adding that the biggest piece of funding for the Walls marker came from MSU’s President Emeritus Clif Smart and his wife Gail, who were both in attendance.
The first marker was laid at Silver Springs Park in Springfield in 2018. Wednesday’s marker is the 8th. Member of the trail committee Wes Pratt spoke at the event, he said the Trail is about making sure our everyday history isn’t forgotten, and that people today and tomorrow have a chance to see themselves in it.
“It's very moving personally,” Pratt said, “because I knew some of these people, but I didn’t know their story. I didn’t know their journey. And our children, our children’s children and I’ll wax eloquently, the beautiful ones not yet born, need to know the story of everyone in Springfield and this region who made a contribution just by live, learning and earning here.”
The marker is just southeast of Plaster Student Union on campus, across from Siceluff Hall. More information on the trail can be found at africanamericanheritagetrailsgf.org.