On Sunday, October 5, 2025, Columbus would learn that afternoon the news that shook its soul: Queen Mother Ann B. Walker — broadcaster, journalist, community matriarch, civil rights trailblazer, and living archive of Black excellence — had joined the ancestors at 101. The air felt heavier that day. Social feeds filled with black-and-white photos, church bells echoed across the Near East Side, and elders spoke her name with reverence, as if afraid it might be the last time it would roll off their tongues while she was still fresh in memory.
This wsn’t just another obituary moment. This was Columbus losing a cornerstone.
From East High to Ebony Airwaves
Long before Ann B. Walker’s name echoed through newsrooms and political halls, it was written in the ink of the East High X-Ray, her high school paper. She recalled the moment her teacher, Miss Marie Google, told her that “we didn’t need to go to Bexley to work in anybody’s kitchen when we were working in our own.” That moment became prophecy.