How a Dallas poet found creative freedom in the Black church

Derrick Walker was a creative kid. He loved to play drums, sketch building designs and give speeches or recite poems onstage.

But he learned early on to rein in his creativity in certain spaces.

In first grade, a teacher rapped his knuckles with a pencil when she thought he cheated on a writing assignment. He had been working on it at school, and when he went home, his handwriting and style changed so much she thought someone else had finished it. Walker wasn’t able to explain he wasn’t the same person at school as he was at home. “So in first grade, it’s like, ‘Oh, if I write, it’s gonna hurt.’”

It was in church that he felt the freedom to be himself.

At Camp Wisdom United Methodist Church, a predominantly Black congregation in Dallas’ Wolf Creek neighborhood, Walker was mentored by youth leaders and teachers who listened to and encouraged him, without asking him to explain or defend himself.

“Being able to be dramatic, or be extra, be loud, flamboyant — church was the space you could get away with it,” says Walker, now 40, sitting in a pew at Camp Wisdom on a recent Sunday. “Because in public you had to be ‘right.’”

Walker has had many creative outlets. He’s produced music for TV shows like Power and The Bachelor and done videography for singer-songwriter Brandy Norwood and marketing for Mark Cuban. Last month, he released his first spoken-word album, called Be Inspired Before Leaving Earth, which combines jazz and hip-hop influences.

In it, Walker weaves together Dallas Black history, meditations on suicide and celebrations of Black hair. He describes it as an invitation to engage with the unfiltered, free-flowing version of himself.

The opening track “Come With Me” includes a jazzy rendition of the spiritual “We Shall Overcome,” a famous anthem of the Civil Rights Movement. In the middle of the track, Walker chants a mantra — “Black is excellent, Black is opulent, Black is strong, Black is unique, Black is powerful” — that he customizes during live performances to mention people in the audience.

“Deeper The Root” pays homage to Deep Ellum. Walker plays with the original name of the neighborhood, “Deep Elm,” which evolved to its current name, he says, because of Black southern drawl. He also highlights Texas’ first prominent Black architect William Sidney Pittman, the son-in-law of Booker T. Washington and designer of Deep Ellum’s Knights of Pythias Temple, which became the center of Black commercial life in Dallas. Art has long been an important way to preserve and document Black history, Walker believes, and to ensure that “even if it’s taken out of schools, it’s not taken from the culture.”

“Legacy,” an ode to “living ancestors,” is built around a poem he’s performed at Dallas events including the 150th anniversary celebration of St. Paul United Methodist Church and a ceremony commemorating the former headquarters of the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce. Walker used to work at the chamber as its director of communication and innovation.

During his recent visit to Camp Wisdom, he stopped to chat with Lisa Cooper, a church administrator who’s known him for years.

When asked what Walker was like as a kid, Cooper remembered his eager, talkative energy.

“What she means is that I wouldn’t shut up,” Walker joked.

She replied: “You had something to say.”

Joy Ashford covers faith and religion in North Texas for The Dallas Morning News through a partnership with Report for America.