BACKGROUND
Dr. Walters earned a doctorate in Cultural Anthropology from New York University after conducting field research among an African-identified group within the hierarchical society of Yemen in the mid 1980s. Subsequently, she produced articles and a film on Yemeni female primary health workers’ promotion of health care and social inclusion completed in 1999. Walters gave the women the video to use as a training and recruitment tool. Prior to earning the doctorate, she completed a B.S. in Biology from the City College of New York and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Columbia University. She also has a Liberal Studies Masters from NYU.
Throughout the early 2000s, she taught a range of applied Anthropology courses, eventually specializing on the Underground Railroad. She initiated the Freedom Trail Commission in Upstate New York. Her courses at Northern Kentucky University focused on freedom seekers in the Kentucky-Ohio Borderlands while she also conducted family/local history workshops for the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati. At this time, Dr. Walters began researching the story of Margaret Garner and incorporating its empowering messages of self-authorship into her classes and presentations.
In the mid 2000s, she directed the Southern Rhode Island Area Health Education Center (sriAHEC) in the College of Nursing and was an Associate Dean for Diversity at the University of Rhode Island. The sriAHEC focused on the Pathways to Nursing program, which sought to diversify the health care workforce and alleviate health disparities. Her prior nursing training was ideal for this position and for creating and facilitating cultural competency sessions for students and faculty at URI.
Ultimately, Dr. Walters’s inquiry into the life of Margaret Garner led to the publication of Gendered Resistance: Women, Slavery & the Legacy of Margaret Garner co-edited with Mary E. Frederickson in 2013. In addition, she used essentially the same genealogical research tools and methods required for investigating one’s own ancestors, which was perfect preparation for her committed exploration into her family’s genealogy. Thus began her journey into her family’s past, which she now gladly shares in her workshops.
