Classic Authors: Alice Walker
© Susan Jensen
Alice Walker was born on February 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia. Her parents, Willie Lee and Minnie Tallulah Walker, welcomed her as the last of their 8 children. Willie Lee labored as a sharecropper; Minnie helped in the fields as well as working in the kitchens of white women. Although the Walkers lived in a shabby sharecropper's cabin, Minnie made it livable by decorating the holes in the walls with beautiful flowers. Alice, who grew close to her mother, describes her as an artist who was happiest among her flowers. Minnie also believed in education, and even allowed Alice to escape some of her daily chores so that she could read and write. Although Alice maintained close relationships with her mother and aunts, she did not get along with her father. In fact, she says that she had no good male role models among her father and brothers.
Alice was a bright and precocious child. She began school at 4 years old, when her mother could no longer take her into the fields. Her confidence shattered, however, when her brother shot her in the eye with a BB gun during a game of Cowboys and Indians. Although she had the scar tissue removed 14 years later, she suffered throughout her childhood, believing that she was ugly and deformed. Her humiliation turned her into an introvert, who found solace in reading and observing people from afar.
High school brought Alice a host of accomplishments, including prom queen, valedictorian and a scholarship to Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. The ladies of the Methodist Church collected $75 to help her on her way, and her mother bought her a typewriter to encourage her creativity. With that, Alice left for Atlanta. After 2 ½ years at Spelman, she received another scholarship, this one to Sarah Lawrence College in New York. Although reluctant to leave the South, she was honored to take her place among only a handful of African-American students at the prestigious school.
While enrolled at Sarah Lawrence, Alice blossomed as a writer and became a stronger person due to difficult life experiences. Alice found a mentor in Muriel Rukeyser, a professor at the New York college. Muriel encouraged the young writer, and later became instrumental in getting Alice published. During her senior year of college, Alice traveled to Africa as an exchange student. The visit exhilarated Alice; however, she soon found out that she had become pregnant during her stay. Desperate, Alice turned to her family. Her sisters rejected her pleas for help, and she knew her father would be livid. Wanting to die, she slept with a knife under her pillow for three days. Finally, a friend helped her find an abortionist. The pain of the abortion gave Alice a surge of creativity, and she began writing the poems that would be published in Once: Poems(1968). Daily, Alice slipped poems under Muriel Rukeyser's office door. In 1965, Alice penned the short story "To Hell With Dying." When Muriel saw the piece, she sent it on to Langston Hughes, who published it two years later in Best Short Stories by Negro Writers(1967). She also received her Bachelor's Degree from Sarah Lawrence in 1965.
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