Brief hand out about Alice Walker's life and her work.

Early Life:

Introduction:

Born February 9, 1944 in Eatonton, GA, which is a farming community in Middle Georgia.

The Accident:

When Alice Walker was eight years old, she lost sight of one eye when one of her older brothers shot her with a BB gun by accident, while playing a game of "Cowboys and Indians."

Solitude:

After her accident, Alice's grades plummeted. Because of the noticeable scar in her right eye, she became an easy target for the other children in her school who teased her mercilessly. To deal with her feelings of loneliness, Alice begins to read and write poetry.

Transformation:

At the age of fourteen, while visiting her brother Bill in Boston, Alice is taken to a hospital to have the cataract in her eye removed. She becomes confident and her life is transformed.

College Life:

In high school, Alice Walker was valedictorian of her class, and that achievement, coupled with a "rehabilitation scholarship" made it possible for her to go to Spelman, a college for black women in Atlanta, Georgia.

English: Alice Walker, Miami Book Fair Internation...

Reading and talking about "Why War is Never a Good...

Meet Alice

After spending two years at Spelman, she transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in New York, and during her junior year traveled to Africa as an exchange student. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College in 1965.

Life after college and present life:

After finishing college, Walker lived for a short time in New York, then from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s, she lived in Tougaloo, Mississippi, during which time she had a daughter, Rebecca, in 1969. Alice Walker was active in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's, and in the 1990's she is still an involved activist. She has spoken for the women's movement, the anti-apartheid movement, for the anti-nuclear movement, and against female genital mutilation. Alice Walker started...