His paternal grandfather was James Henry Walker, a schoolmaster from Barbados. James emigrated to St. Vincent with his wife, Millicent, around the the first part of the 20th century. As an educator, he had great expectations for his four daughters and four sons. James's second son, Cuthbert, emigrated to New York to study at City College and work for the Erie Railroad.
When the Depression struck, Erie Railroad moved its headquarters in the early 1930s to Cleveland. Cuthbert followed his job. There, he attended John Marshall Law School and met his future wife.
Walker's maternal grandfather, Ormand Forte, was also from Barbados and emigrated to the United States with his wife, Ida. The ambitious Forte attended Macalester College in St. Paul and worked for Hanna Steel in Cleveland. The Fortes had a daughter, Hilda, in 1911. Steel magnate Mark Hanna noticed young Ormand and helped him set up an African American newspaper in Cleveland just four years later. The Advocate grew in influence and spawned three other papers.
Arthur Walker was born an only child in Cleveland on Aug. 24, 1936. He had no siblings but was close to his many cousins. In 1941 the family moved to New York, where Walker's father set up his own law practice.
Young Arthur loved science. Both of his parents supported him, but his mother, Hilda, was especially key in his development. She organized parents at his elementary school to fight a problem of teachers leaving the school during the day for errands. This led to a transfer to a new school outside their district. There, Arthur discvered the library and science. His new goal became to study the universe like Albert Einstein. His mother encouraged him to take the test for the Bronx High School of Science.
His first love was chemistry, but when his teacher tried to discourage him, Hilda stepped in again and told the teacher in no uncertain terms that her son would study whatever he pleased. When Walker then decided to pursue physics, his mother encouraged him to apply to the Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland.
Arthur Walker earned a baccalaureate degree in physics with honors from there in 1957. He went on to pursue and earn a master's degree in 1958 and doctorate in 1962 from the University of Illinois. His dissertation was on the use of radiation to produce the particles that bind protons and neutrons together in the atomic nucleus.
In 1962 he joined the U.S. Air Force as a 1st lieutenant. His first assignment was to the Air Force Weapons Laboratory. There he was instrumental in developing instrumentation for an experiment that involved rocket launch of a satellite to measure Van Allen belt radiation in the Earth's magnetic field which affects satellite operation. This work ignited his interest in research carried out with space techniques.
Walker left the service in 1965, when his commitment was up. He then joined the Space Physics Laboratory of the Aerospace Corporation, where for 9 years he conducted pioneering physics experiments to study the sun and upper atmosphere of the Earth.
