Alice Walker

Alice Walker: biography

Alice Walker was born Alice Malsenior Walker to share-cropper parents. She later legally added ‘Tallulah Kate’ to her name in honour of her mother and paternal grandmother, so in 1994 her legal name became Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker. Walker had 7 siblings with whom she grew up.

The family grew up poor although her mother, Minnie Tallulah Grant, worked as a maid to support the family. When she was 8 years old, Walker was shot in the eye with a BB gun her brothers were playing with. Her eye was damaged and a visible mark was left.

Fig. 1 - Alice Walker is best known for her novel The Color Purple and her activism.

Alice Walker's education

Walker excelled in educational pursuits. Walker went to high school during the era of racial segregation in the United States and as such, her high school in Eatonton, Georgia was attended by Black students exclusively. She became valedictorian of Butler Baker High School and obtained a scholarship to attend Spelman College in 1961.

Spelman College was one of the first historically black women’s colleges in the United States and is located in Atlanta, Georgia. Walker left Spelman College before graduating and opted to attend Sarah Lawrence College in New York, a liberal arts college, to finish her studies after obtaining a scholarship. She studied literature, Latin poetry and history.

Alice Walker's activism

Alice Walker's social activism is a means for her to find freedom in self-expression and to help others do the same.

Alice Walker's involvement in the Civil Rights movement

Following her graduation from Sarah Lawrence College in 1965 after a successful few years there, Walker worked as a teacher and a social worker. When she was at Spelman College during the era of the Civil Rights movement (1950s and 1960s), Walker met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the key proponent of the movement, at the college. King Jr. inspired her to return to the South to be involved in Civil Rights activism in the region.

Notable instances of Walker’s Civil Rights activism are her involvement in the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi in the 1960s, and her involvement in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. As suggested by the name of the march, its purpose was to obtain economic and Civil Rights for Black Americans. At this march, Dr. King Jr, gave his well-known ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.

Alice Walker and Womanism

Alice Walker coined the term ‘womanist’, which describes a woman of colour who is a feminist. Womanism takes into account intersectionality, so it considers how factors such as race and social class have an impact on women in a patriarchal society and how this affects their aim to achieve equality.

Alice Walker's involvement in the Israel-Palestinian conflict

In 2009, Walker was part of a group called Code Pink. The group was comprised of other female activists as they travelled to Gaza to provide aid for those in need during the Israel-Palestinian conflict and to talk with organisations active on the ground.

Fig. 2 - Alice Walker's activism extends to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Alice Walker: personal life

Alice Walker met Jewish civil rights lawyer Melvyn Rosenman Leventhal in 1965 and married him in 1967. The couple moved from New York to Jackson, Mississippi, and were the first legally married interracial couple in Mississippi (though they did not gain their marriage license in Mississippi, which only had its first marriage license for an interracial couple granted in 1970).

The Jim Crow laws were used to enforce racial segregation in Mississippi, and this affected every area of life, such as jobs, housing, marriage and even voting. Walker and Leventhal were often harassed by white people in the area and were threatened by the white supremacist terrorist group, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

Walker and Leventhal had one child together in 1969- their daughter Rebecca. The couple later divorced in 1976 and this was followed by Walker’s relocation to northern California. With her move to California, Walker established a publishing company named Wild Tree Press along with Robert L. Allen, a fellow writer, in 1984.

Alice Walker: books

Alice Walker is a well-renowned author of fiction and non-fiction works. These include the following:

The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970)

The Third Life of Grange Copeland is Alice Walker’s first published novel. Set in rural Georgia in the United States, it initially explores the life of the protagonist Grange Copeland, a poor share-cropper with poor life prospects as he is ridden with debt. Copeland abandons his family and tries to escape his debts by leaving for the northern states of America.

The novel overall comments on violence within economically poor Black communities and also violence and racism inflicted on them from external forces. Before being weighed down by the burdens of debt and the reality of being poor and Black in the South, Grange and his wife, Margaret, were optimistic about the life they could build together.

As the debts keep accruing, Grange becomes extremely violent towards Margaret and their son, Brownfield. Copeland begins to have sex with Josie, a prostitute, to his wife’s knowledge. In retaliation, Margaret has sex with white men, knowing it will anger Grange. When she becomes pregnant and delivers a mixed-race baby, Margaret ends the baby’s life and her own life, leaving Brownfield alone.

Despite his efforts to do otherwise, Brownfield grows up to end up in the same debt trap as his father, beats his wife to death, and is sentenced to prison, leaving their daughter, Ruth, behind. Grange Copeland’s ‘third life’ begins with his return to the South and he decides to look after his granddaughter, Ruth.

Copeland is committed to changing the patterns that resulted in him destroying his family and, indirectly, Brownfield’s imprisonment. He spoils Ruth and educates her and she eventually becomes involved in the Civil Rights movement. Grange kills Brownfield after he is released from prison and as he tries to assert his authority as Ruth’s father.

Meridian (1976)

Meridian follows the protagonist Meridian Hill, a college student in the American South in the 1960s and 70s. Meridian becomes involved in the Civil Rights movement. It is during this time that she begins to form an inconsistent relationship with Truman Held, another Civil Rights activist. She becomes pregnant but decides to have an abortion. After this, Truman wants to start a life with her more than ever.

As Truman eventually becomes involved with a white woman who is also an activist in the Civil Rights movement, Meridian focuses on remaining committed to the movement and devotes her time to that, gaining personal fulfilment, whilst Truman does not obtain the personal successes he wished for. The themes explored in this novel are activism, womanism, and personal struggle.

The Color Purple (1982)

The Color Purple is Walker’s best-known work. Walker won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983 for The Color Purple, and this made her the first Black woman to do so. The novel details the life experiences of the protagonist and first-person narrator, Celie, who is a young Black girl growing up in rural Georgia in the United States. Celie writes letters to God, then letters to her sister, Nellie, recounting the things that happen to her - from the abuse and violence she suffers at the hands of her step-father, Alphonso, and later her husband, Mister (Albert), to her friendship with the singer, Shug Avery.

The themes explored in The Color Purple are female friendships, violence and sexism, racism, God, religion and spirituality. It was banned from some school libraries in the United States from 1984 to 2010.

Challengers cited that the book had elements of sexual and social explicitness and unsavoury teachings on race relations, God, and sexuality. Celie achieves the independence and personal fulfilment she did not have previously, after refusing to stay with Mister and continuing to endure the violence.

The Color Purple was so popular that it was adapted into a film by world-renowned director Steven Spielberg in 1985.

Alice Walker’s fictional novel collection is comprised of:

• To Hell With Dying (1988)
• The Temple of My Familiar (1989)
• Finding the Green Stone (1991)
• Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992)
• Now Is the Time to Open Your Heart (2004)
• By the Light of My Father’s Smile (2005)
• There Is A Flower At The Tip Of My Nose Smelling Me (2006)
• Why War Is Never A Good Idea (2007)
• Sweet People Are Everywhere (2021)

Alice Walker: non-fiction books

Alice Walker’s non-fictional books include:

In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose (1983)

This is a collection of writings and speeches composed between 1966 and 1982 that detail Walker’s exploration of what it is to be a womanist. Walker also explores the relationships women have with each other, from mother to sister to lover.

Sent By Earth: A Message from the Grandmother Spirit After the Bombing of the World Trade Center and Pentagon (2001)

In this text, Alice Walker focuses on the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, known as 9/11. Walker explores the feelings of anger, frustration and hatred as a consequence of the attacks.

We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For (2006)

This non-fictional work centres on the themes of compassion and forgiveness. Walker provokes readers to see their ability to be the drivers of positive change in their lives and in the world, despite the challenges that arise. Events such as war and natural disasters as used by Walker as a way to show how individuals can effect change for the better.

Alice Walker's other non-fictional works are:

1. Langston Hughes, American Poet (1974)
2. Living by the Word (1988)
3. Warrior Marks (1993)
4. The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult (1996)
5. Anything We Love Can Be Saved: A Writer's Activism (1997)
6. Pema Chödrön and Alice Walker in Conversation (1999)

1. Overcoming Speechlessness (2010)
2. Chicken Chronicles, A Memoir (2011)
3. The cushion in the road – Meditation and wandering as the whole world awakens to be in harm's way (2013)

Alice Walker: poems

Walker is also an accomplished poet with numerous collections.

Once (1968)

Once (1968) is Alice Walker’s first collection of poetry. The poems featured in this collection were written in East Africa in 1965, when Walker spent the summer there, or during her time at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. The themes explored in this poetry collection are the Civil Rights movement, exploring Africa as a Black American woman, and love.

Revolutionary Petunias (1976)

This collection of poetry has poems centred around Alice Walker’s thoughts and considerations about the Civil Rights movement. It also explores the parallel between revolution and love by showing how a loss of trust and a loss of compassion results in a loss of hope.

Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful (1984)

Alice Walker’s Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful (1984) takes inspiration from the story of a Native American shaman’s thoughts on the terrible consequences of the colonisation of their land and how these ills were almost forgiven because the coloniser brought horses with them. Walker reflects on themes of war and pollution and how when in love, one may yearn to see the best in and forgive the one who oppresses them.

Alice Walker’s other poetry works are:

• Good Night, Willie Lee, I’ll See You In the Morning (1979)
• Her Blue Body Everything We Know, Earthling Poems (1991)
• Absolute Trust In The Goodness Of The Earth (2003)
• A Poem Travelled Down My Arm, poetry and drawings (2003)
• Hard Times Require Furious Dancing (2010)
• The World Will Follow Joy; Turning Madness Into Flowers (2013)

Themes in Alice Walker’s works

The themes commonly explored in Alice Walker’s works are economic struggle, the Black family and culture, racism, violence, sexism, love, relationships between women, womanhood and social and political revolution. Walker most often explores these themes in the backdrop of rural southern states in America.

Violence and sexism

Sofia speaks to Celie, the protagonist, about how she did not expect to have to fight back against violence from her husband. Sofia acknowledges that girls and women in a family are not always protected by the men in that family. Yet, she had not expected this to be her experience as Harpo, her husband, had treated her lovingly before his father, Mister (Albert), said he had to assert his dominance over Sofia by beating her. This shows how violence and sexism can be intertwined.

Relationships amongst women/womanhood

In this essay, Walker discusses the trials and tribulations that generations of women have endured. Walker reflects on poet Jean Toomer’s poem ‘Avey’, where a prostitute is falling asleep as he speaks. Toomer sees how Black women have been used as the ‘mule of the world’, and as sexual objects and have had to take the position of being selfless to endure what they go through.

Love

Suwelo is one of many narrators in The Temple of My Familiar (1989), which explores the lives of multiple narrators. Suwelo is a Black professor who believes that the men in his generation have not fulfilled the expectations of women of his generation. This is his commentary on how he sees the romantic relationships between men and women of his generation.

Social and political revolution

The following quote shows Meridian’s convictions in her studies and in her activism. Meridian is an activist who believes in dismantling the rich classes, where the wealth they accumulate is often at the expense of the poor.

Alice Walker today

Walker still writes novels, and poems and has a website where she shares information about her new literary works and political issues she is curious about. An activist to the core, Alice Walker remains supportive of anti-war political movements and offers political commentary via her website.

Enthusiasts of Walker's works can keep up-to-date with her current works, and her most recent poem to date is 'The Medicine Blow' (2022), which discusses Walker's perception of what it is to 'make medicine'- medicine for the body, medicine for the spirit.