Alice Walker Research Paper

Despite her childhood issues and growing up when schools were segregated, Walker graduated from her high school as valedictorian. She won a full scholarship to Spellman College in Atlanta Georgia in 1961. When she was a freshman there, she was invited to the home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He recognized her because she attended the Youth World Peace Festival in Helsinki, Finland. She

Walker extends this to communicate the value in maintaining accurate historical records for our families. Again in “A Letter to the Editor Ms.” Walker suggests this. “And I looked again at Shirley Chisholm’s Face (which I have never seen before except on television) and was glad that she kept a record of her political and social struggles, because our greatest women die, often in poverty and under the weight of slander, and are soon forgotten.” (ISOMG pg. 274) Walker continually conveys the importance of African American women writers and keeping up with their works. Without these accounts history and truth is being lost. There is so much history that is taught about African Americans in general that is diluted because of the lack of truthful firsthand accounts that are available. Without the ability to get an education, word of mouth and storytelling was the only way that tradition and history could be passed down through the generations. Here the themes of the importance of the role of women is introduced. Their role is important in maintaining this knowledge. We (African American women) can not only know names of those before us, but rather know their story. Walker points out the importance of African American women covering all grounds and knowing ‘her herstory’ to aid future generations. We must spend time doing this, so we let none of our history die with us.

Alice Walker is considered one of the most influential African American writers of the 20th century, because of her raw portrayal of African American struggles and the injustices towards black women. She was the first African American female novelist to win both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for The Color Purple. Her work is appealing and powerful because “Walker's novels can be read as an ongoing narrative of an African American woman's energence from the voiceless obscurity of poverty and racial and sexual victimization to become a reshaper of culture and tradition” (Gray 527). Through

Alice Walker is an award winning  author, most famously recognized for her novel  The Color Purple ;aside from being a novelist Walker is also a poet,essayist and activist .Her writing explores various social aspects as it concerns women and also celebrates political as well as social revolution. Walker has gained the reputation of being a prominent spokesperson and a symbolic figure for black feminism. Proper analyzation  of Walker 's work comes from the  knowledge on her early life, educational background and position in black literature.

Alice Walker is a world renowned novelist, poet, short story author and political activist, with works including The Temples of my Familiar and In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens. Yet Ms. Walker’s most critically acclaimed novel remains The Color Purple. The Color Purple tells the complex tale African American women, their brutal living conditions, everyday abuse, and their instinct to survive. The Color Purple was an immediate success due to its simple writing style, the intricate storyline, and compelling characters. In 1983 The Color Purple was recognized for these very reasons and graciously awarded The Pulitzer Prize For Fiction. Every year several Pulitzer Awards are handed out to distinguished

Author and poet Alice Walker is a well-educated woman, who graduated from Spellman College and Sarah Lawrence College. As a child, she lived on a farm with her mother, father, and many siblings. Her father was a poor sharecropper who worked for a Caucasian older woman. Her mother spent long days cleaning houses as a maid to support her family. Alice walker was a girl full of spunk. She’s loved, beautiful and not ashamed to let everyone know, “I’m the prettiest!” (442). She’s confident in herself and sees that she’s adored by her family and community, stating “When I rise to give my speech I do so on a great wave of love and pride and expectation” (442). Her sassy personality shines through her little body and everyone noticed, “. . . it is my spirit, bordering on sassiness (womanishness), they secretly applaud” (442). At church she hears women admiring her as she walked and said her speech, “"That girl's a little mess, they whisper to each other, pleased” (442). They also remark about how cute she is.

“Poetry is a the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness” (Walker). This is a quote from Alice Walker, a poet, novelist, and activist. She is an acclaimed writer who is greatly inspired by the civil rights movement and feminism. Born in Eatonton, Georgia in 1944, she helped bring African-American women's lives into attention through her novels and pieces of writing. While growing up Walker got to see the horrors of the Klu Klux Klan and Jim Crow Laws. Despite this, her parents still sent her to school where she received a good education and later went on to college. Alice Walker was immensely inspired by her mother who gave her the incentive for her influential writing. She attended Spelman College in Atlanta, 1961, which is famous for being one of the first historic black women’s colleges in the United States. Here she became involved with the civil rights movement and an active feminist. She has continued to be an activist and is taking action in the world today. Growing up during the oppression of African-Americans inspired her to be an advocate for black women; her writing passionately proclaims a message that educates and inspires others.

Much of Alice Walker’s work, including ‘In Search of our Mother’s Gardens’ is an expression of her thoughts and ideas on the subject of black history and with it explores racism, oppression, slavery, self-identity, freedom, enlightenment and independence. She writes about the scope of her history as a black woman, both personally and through the past experiences of her ancestors. In an interview with John O’Brien, when asked what determines her interests as a writer she responded stating “I am preoccupied with the spiritual survival, the survival whole of my people. But beyond that, I am committed to exploring the oppressions, the insanities, the loyalties, and the triumphs of black women...For me, black women are the most fascinating creations in the world.”

         Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1944 in Georgia. She is a famous black -American writer who is concerned about the identity of black Americans, and especially the black female experience. Until 1960, black American literature was driven by black male writers such as Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Jean Toomer, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes. Because of discrimination, black women writers were not able to express themselves. They were restrained by society. There was a major resistance to conservative culture. Women writers who raised a hare in a society were Toni Morrison, Carolyn, Paule Marshall, Nikki Giovani, Alice Walker. Among them, a writer who was the most focused on the issue of discrimination and women’s right in black society was Alice Walker. Donna Seaman, a senior editor for Booklist, interviewed Alice Walker that “Segregation in Georgia, our apartheid, was a real blow to me. It was a real shock to see that people would actually spend their time making horrible laws and killing people and tearing down our school when, instead, they could be admiring what was all around them”. Even she was not allowed to enter a public library in her town because of racial discrimination. She had described her experiences of racism, human rights abuses, and discrimination since she was very young. Laurie McMillan said, “Walker is very aware of the history of oppression of African Americans, and she recognizes the importance of building a heritage to help African Americans thrive.” (113) Alice Walker went through many experiences influenced her views about herself as well views of everything that surrounded

Alice Walker is American novelist, short story writer, essayist, poet, social worker, civil-rights, educator, publisher and peace activist. An acclaimed writer whose controversial novel The Color Purple (1982) won both the American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, Walker writes powerful, expressive fiction in which she delineates the black woman’s struggle for spiritual wholeness and political autonomy. Viewing the African-American woman as a symbol representing hope and resurrection for humanity, Walker stresses the importance of bonds between woman as a means to content with racism and sexism.

Besides Alice’s close involvement as a sharecropper’s daughter, she also shared an incident that scared her life at a very early age, which may have changed the way she saw the world around her in addition to having an immense influence in her writing. At eight years old, she was shot in the eye by her older brother with a BB gun while playing cowboys and indians. As a result, Alice was not only wounded physically but emotionally as well.

The accounts that Alice Walker used to prove her points and back up her arguments were African American history that she was all too familiar with. It may have been shared to her by her families, or simply a collective knowledge passed down from one generation to another. She is also well-educated, a wide reader, and an artist. She often cites Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, relating a white woman’s plight to a black woman’s hardships. She emphasizes that even though she recognizes Woolf’s point about society’s unfair treatment to women of her time, Walker still believes that black women suffered the most (Walker). There is simply nothing that could compare to the artistic suppression that her mother and grandmothers experienced.

Alice Walker was born February 9, 1944 to parents Minnie Tallulah Grant and Willie Lee Walker in Eatonton, Georgia. Her parents were sharecroppers and her mother worked as a maid to help to supplement the family income. She was the youngest of 8 children. At the age of 8 years old, one of her brothers accidentally shot her in the right eye with a BB gun while playing a game of Cowboys and Indians. She became partially blind and developed scar tissue in her eye. She was teased by her classmates and felt misunderstood by her family, which caused her to become a shy and withdrawn young lady. (New Georgia Encyclopedia, 2012) "For a long time, I thought I was very ugly and disfigured,"

Much of Alice Walker’s writing in the late 1900’s was centered on young women attempting to find themselves in their unhealthy relationships.

The day Alice Walker was born, February 9, 1944, was the same year that the Supreme Court ruled that white only political primaries are unconstitutional. Right from the start she was witnessing progress that she would help move forward later in her life. She was born in Eatonton, Georgia and grew up in poverty. She said in an interview that at 2 years old her mother was so sick and since she was the last of eight children they needed someone to take care of her so her parent sent her to relatives, the audience laughs when she says that her family was trying to “get rid of her” but she continues and you realize that they had so little that they were trying to send her away. She only stayed with those relatives for some months because when she saw her father again she wouldn’t let him go. Her parents were sharecroppers and also “dairy people” as she puts it in that same interview. Even though her family was very poor and there were so many children her parents still sent her to school starting at the age of 4 a year ahead of schedule.