Alice Walker Essay

Alice Walker
Michael L. Brown

Alice Walker, novelist, poet and activist whom had to overcome many obstacles growing up in the south as an African American female. Alice Walker focused on the African American experiences of slavery, race relations. Critics accused Walker of male bashing and being harsh towards men (such as the men in the novel and movie The Color Purple), which was because of her father’s belief’s that she was not recognized as an individual but as a girl, or woman whose place was cooking cleaning and sweeping. As an activist Walker dealt with issues of domestic violence and incest.
Born on February 9, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia to her mother Minnie Tallulah Grant Walker and father Willie Lee Walker who was the grandson of slaves, Walker’s relationship with her father was antagonized as she grew into adolescence and showed liking for intellectual pursuits (Johnson, Y (2014). Her mother enrolled her into school at the age of four because she knew how education was very important to Walker. At four years of age she was moved up to the first grade by school officials. Minnie saved money and purchased a sewing machine to make clothes for Walker to attend school, a suitcase and a typewriter which would be used later. There were many obstacles in her life growing up, when she was eight years old, Walker shot in the eye by her brother’s BB gun and she was permanently blinded in her right eye. She was convinced that the scar tissue in her eye was disfiguring and ugly, so she retreated into solitude. (Johnson, Y (2014). Her grades suffered and she often felt ashamed and suicidal. (Bates, G. (2005)
As Walker became a victim of being teased by other classmates, because of her condition with her eye Walker begin reading books people would give her and writing, and after more than 30 years later Walker wrote about her life changing injury in “Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self” (2005). Her scar tissue was removed and Walker eventually attends high school and becomes valedictorian, but still feels like outsider. In 1961 Walker attended Spelman College and during that time, she became active in

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