Maggie Lena (née Draper Mitchell) Walker (July 15, 1864 – December 15, 1934) was a businesswoman and teacher. In 1903, Walker became both the first African American woman to charter a bank and the first African American woman to serve as a bank president. As a leader, Walker achieved successes with the vision to make tangible improvements in the way of life for African Americans. Disabled by paralysis and a wheelchair user later in life, Walker also became an example for people with disabilities. Walker's restored and furnished home in the historic Jackson Ward neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia has been designated a National Historic Site, operated by the National Park Service. Childhood Maggie Lena Draper was born on July 15, 1864, the daughter of Elizabeth Draper and Eccles Cuthbert. Her mother, a former slave, was an assistant cook at the Van Lew estate in Church Hill of Richmond, Virginia, where she met Cuthbert, an Irish American journalist for the New York Herald, based in Virginia. There is no record of a marriage between Draper and Cuthbert. Draper was employed by Elizabeth Van Lew, who had been a spy for the Union during the Civil War (1861–1865) in the Confederate capital city of Richmond. Draper married William Mitchell, a butler at the Van Lew estate, soon after Walker's birth. In 1870, Johnnie Mitchell was born to her mother and stepfather. After William Mitchell became headwaiter at the Saint Charles Hotel, the Mitchell family moved to their own home on College Alley off of Broad Street nearby Miss Van Lew's home where Walker and her half-brother Johnnie were raised. The house was near the First African Baptist Church which, like many black churches at the time, was an economic, political, and social center for the local black community. After the untimely death of William Mitchell, Walker's mother supported her family by working as a laundress. Walker attended the newly formed Richmond Public Schools and helped her mother by delivering clean clothes. When she was fourteen years old, Walker joined the local council of the Independent Order of St. Luke. This fraternal burial society, established in 1867 in Baltimore, Maryland, ministered to the sick and aged, promoted humanitarian causes, and encouraged individual self-help and integrity. Teaching career After graduating from the Richmond Colored Normal School in 1883, she taught for three years at her former school, the Valley School, also known as the