Alice Walker is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, poet, and activist. She was born on February 9, 1944, in Putnam County, Georgia, and grew up in the rural South during the Jim Crow era. Her childhood was marked by poverty, segregation, and violence, but it was also shaped by her parents' love, her own determination and resilience, and the influence of the civil rights movement.
Walker was the youngest of eight children in a poor sharecropping family. She was born just two years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, at a time when the United States was still reeling from the Great Depression and World War II. In the rural South, where Walker grew up, poverty and racism were deeply entrenched, and African Americans like Walker's family lived under the constant threat of violence and oppression.
Despite these challenges, Walker's parents were loving and supportive, and they instilled in her a love of learning and a strong sense of self-worth. Her mother, Minnie Lee Walker, was a devoted homemaker and a passionate reader who encouraged her children to read and learn as much as they could. Her father, Willie Lee Walker, was a sharecropper and a Baptist minister who preached the importance of education and hard work.
As a child, Walker was an avid reader and a curious learner. She was also a talented writer, and she began writing poetry and stories at a young age. In 1952, when she was just eight years old, Walker was hit in the eye by a BB gun pellet that was accidentally shot by one of her brothers. The injury left her permanently blind in one eye, and she spent several years in and out of hospitals and clinics trying to regain her vision. Despite her injury, Walker remained determined to succeed in school, and she excelled in her studies, eventually earning a scholarship to Spelman College in Atlanta.
While at Spelman, Walker became involved in the civil rights movement, participating in protests and boycotts and working to promote social justice and equality. After graduating from Spelman, she attended Sarah Lawrence College, where she earned a degree in creative writing. It was during her time at Sarah Lawrence that Walker began working on her first novel, "The Color Purple," which would go on to become a best-seller and win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Throughout her career, Walker has been a vocal advocate for civil rights, women's rights, and other social justice issues. She has written extensively on these topics, and her work has inspired and influenced countless people around the world. Despite the many challenges and hardships she faced in her childhood, Alice Walker's determination and resilience have enabled her to overcome adversity and become a powerful voice for change. So, Alice Walker's childhood was marked by poverty, segregation, and violence, but it was also shaped by her parents' love, her own determination and resilience, and the influence of the civil rights movement.