Literary Giants - Alice Walker

American author Alice Walker is best known for her novel “The Color Purple”. That novel not only wont the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction but was also adapted into an award winning screenplay as well. However “The Color Purple” was published in 1982 and Ms. Walker had not only been writing but had been contributing to the feminist and civil rights movements for several years before that happened.

Born in Georgia in 1944, Alice Walker is youngest of the 8 Walker children. Her mother a maid and her father a sharecropper knew that children, even black children, needed an education. Alice was enrolled at age 4 in the first grade. Alice took to education and was a wonderful student; she was valedictorian of her graduating class as well as most popular girl and the Queen of the Senior Class.

After high school Alice attended Spellman College in Atlanta, and then transferred to Sarah Lawrence College near NYC. Walker became interested and involved in the civil rights movement. She returned to the south after college and was involved with welfare rights, children’s programs, and voter registration drives in Mississippi.

Alice and her husband, a Jewish civil rights lawyer named Mel Leventhal, moved to Jackson Mississippi in 1967 and were the first legally married inter-racial couple in the state. This brought a great deal of harassment and threats from the KKK.

In the midst of all this strife and fighting for civil rights, Alice continued to write. From her first book of poetry that was published while she was at Sarah Lawrence to being an editor for Ms. Magazine, and several published articles and collections of short stories and poetry, Alice Walker was a name that was well known in the literary world.

Her novels include “Meridian”, “The Temple of My Familiar” and of course “The Color Purple”. The typical focus of Alice Walker’s works is the struggle of blacks and particularly women, in the war against a racist, sexist, and violent society. Alice Walker is a respected figure in the political community for her support of the liberal ideals of unconventional and unpopular views.