Novelist and American activist Alice Walker is currently 80 years old and continues to be well-known in the writing industry. Walker has had plenty of awards for her written works and has been lauded for her activism regarding African American rights.
Alice Walker was born on Feb. 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia. Walker’s mother, Minnie Tullulah Grant, was a maid while her father, Willie Lee Walker, was a farmer. Walker grew up with eight other siblings, making her childhood interesting to say the least. One key moment in her childhood was when she was eight, one of her brothers shot her in the eye with a BB Gun and Walker became permanently blind in one eye. When she got older, she attended Spelman College in Atlanta with a scholarship but later transferred to Sarah Lawrence in New York. There, she majored in literature and studied a lot in Latin poetry and history. In 1965, she graduated college and also published her first short story.
After she graduated college, she accomplished many things such as joining the Civil Rights Movement and becoming a social worker, a teacher, and a lecturer. Through her protests, she met Melvyn Leventhal who would eventually become her husband in 1967. One year later, inspired by the Civil Rights Movement, she published her first book of poetry and then her first novel titled “The Third Life of Grange Copeland”. Walker has continued to write many more works of poetry and other writings that have garnered commercial and critical success.
Walker has had multiple achievements, but probably her largest one to date is her novel, “The Color Purple.” Though the book was banned in some places, the book has won numerous awards and even has two film adaptations. Throughout her career, Walker has encouraged lots of African American women to be able to know their worth and pursue their artistic talents. She was the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1983 in addition to numerous other accolades. Although she won many awards and wrote plenty of accomplishments, she is not very well known. But hopefully, after reading this article, you have learned a bit more about Alice Walker and may even pick up one of her books.
