Author – Alice Walker

Alice Walker was born on Feb. 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia. Walker grew up poor being the youngest of 8 children. Growing up in the drastically split-up South, Walker defied numerous stereotypes, including graduating as class valedictorian. 

After high school, she attended Spelman College in Atlanta with a scholarship but later switched to Sarah Lawrence College in New York. While attending Sarah Lawrence Walker went abroad to Africa to study abroad. After she graduated from college Walker became heavily involved with the civil rights movement. Walker debuted with Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970), showcasing her phenomenal storytelling. Walker continued to write and fight for civil rights, giving several lectures at universities about African American writers. 

Walker’s most acclaimed novel is The Color Purple, written in 1982. Set in early 1900 America, the Color Purple dissects and highlights the struggles of African American women. Walker’s Fascinating novel won Walker both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction in 1983. Walker is the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer prize, trailblazing the progression for Black women in Literature. 

Both Maya Angleou and Alice Walker have made colossal impacts on women, men, students, teachers, and People of Color. 

“The power of both writers is in their intersectionality because they represent the voices of both women and African Americans–feminists and Civil Rights activists. They also were trailblazers; for example, Alice Walker was the first African-American woman to get the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Color Purple. I remember Maya Angelou reciting a poem at Bill Clinton’s first inauguration. Neither of them sugar-coated their life experiences and much of their writing reflected the hard realities (fictionalized or not) that they’d lived. I think what’s especially powerful to me is reading their writing (or any writer’s work) and feeling, Yes, me too!” English teacher at LSHS, Kati Tilley said.