The photo is of one of Alice's childhood homes with brother Curtis standing at the left corner. The old building is being restored by Danny Copelan.
Although Putnam’s Alice Walker has published many significant works, The Color Purple, which premiered in Eatonton in 1986, still stands out in the popular mind, mainly because of the Pulitzer Prize and the Steven Spielberg and Quincy Jones movie. History is honoring the broad body of Alice’s work but it is safe to say that The Color Purple put her on the global literary map (she has a sizable international following) as well as helped Putnam County (possibly already there in some minds from the work of Joel Chandler Harris). Dr. John Campbell included the work in the Book of Great Books, A Guide to 100 World Classics. Alice Walker and The Color Purple, as with many Pulitzer Prize winners, were both controversial. But history has a way of treating events with a kind of staying power and objectivity not easily seen in popular views of the time.
What led to the writing of The Color Purple, as well as many other works? In my last column we followed the Walker family from great great great great grandmother, Mae Poole, who walked behind a wagon from Virginia to Putnam County until the time Alice graduated from high school. A significant event in Alice’s youth was losing her sight in one eye from a BB gun accident and the resulting large scar, which according to sister Ruth, changed Alice from a precocious, outgoing child, who spoke articulately to church and other groups to a withdrawn, introverted girl with declining grades. Alice read quietly for hours and began to write poetry. Alice has been quoted as saying that the results of the accident enabled her to become more realistic in the observations of people and gain maturity in developing and evaluating relationships. Her life turned for the better after the scar was removed and her lack of sight and improved grades led to a handicapped student scholarship in 1961 to Atlanta’s Spelman College where Alice became active in the Civil Rights movement. She was able to listen to Martin Luther King speak and to expand her horizons by beginning to travel internationally. She left Spelman (thinking it too puritanical) for Sarah Lawrence in New York where a professor and mentor, Muriel Rekeyser, helped Alice publish her first work of poetry, Once. Alice remained active in the Civil Rights movement and continued to write as praise and awards increased for her published works. She spent time in Georgia, Mississippi, Massachusetts, California and New York developing, writing and teaching and became a contributing editor to Ms. Magazine. By the mid 1970s Alice had published a number of well-received works including articles, short stories, poetry and two novels (The Third Life of Grange Copeland in 1970 and Meridian in 1976). By the late 1970s thoughts for what became The Color Purple began to form but the precise plot was not yet clear. On a visit to Putnam County Alice was walking near Wards Chapel Rd with her sister Ruth and they discussed Alice’s dilemma with the book. Ruth says they talked about ancestors, relationships “that were not as they should be” and romantic triangles ('two women who felt married to the same man"). The Pulitzer Prize winning novel came together.
It should be noted that there is no authorized biography of Alice Walker and Alice rarely gives interviews. However, an authorized biography by Evelyn White is in the works and may be available by Christmas.
Published in U S Legacies October 2003
Continued from May 20, 2022
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