Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia.
She was born to Willie Lee and Minnie Lou Grant Walker who worked with crops. Walker grew up in a small town during a time of segregation when African Americans worked in the fields and whites controlled everything. Growing up, Walker was told stories about murder, homicide, massacres, torture, and capital punishment of young African Americans. Racism and Sexism played important roles in her childhood.
She was faced with social injustices and unemployment all because of the color of her skin and gender. “I was curious to know why people in families (specifically black families) are often cruel to each other and how much of this cruelty is caused by outside forces as various social injustices, segregation, unemployment, etc (Davis).” One of the reasons she became an author was because of an experience she had when she was eight years old. At the age of eight, Walker lost sight in one eye after her older brother shot her with a BB gun. Until she was about fourteen, Walker had a scar covering her eye. During this experience, Walker kept a notebook of poems about the relationships between humans and nature. Growing up in her small Southern town, Walker depended on books.
In an interview Walker said that books saved her from “feeling alone.” Walker said that books became such an important part of her life, they became her world. Reading was like an escape for Alice. She could escape from the cruel world she was born into. Books helped her get through the “feeling of being an outcast.
” Alice Walker’s mom constantly explained to her the beauties of nature and connecting on a spiritual level. Her mother told her stories about the Creator working with the universe to create Beauty. “I notice that it is only when my mother is working in her flowers that she is radiant, almost to the point of being invisible—except as Creator: hand and eye. She is involved in work her soul must have. Ordering the universe in the image of her personal Beauty (Walker).
” Her mother showed her the important of art and literature. She made sure that those components were a part of her life. In some of her works, Walker uses nature and spirituality as her main topics. Walker attended Spelman University in Atlanta and then Sarah Lawrence University in New York. During her time in theses universities, Walker began to become aware of herself, her characters and the influence of her work. “The Southern Revolution” is what Walker calls the period of time when a civil rights movement greatly affected Spelman University.
“Everyone was beautiful, because everyone was conquering fear bu holding the hands of the person next to them (Walker).” During her years in college, Walker intensified her understanding of writers and those that have inspired her. In all of Walkers works, she exposes the violence, sexism and racism inflicted on women of color. Walker wants to bring those to light that are being constantly abused and suffering whether its physical, mentally or both
