Alice Walker
Book TV interviewed Alice Walker in depth at her home in Berkley, California this past weekend. Alice Walker, of course, is author of over twenty-five books, including the very famous The Color Purple. She is an activist and humanist as well. She loves the world, the whole miracle of it, and sees God in everything and everyone.
After listening and watching Alice Walker on this in-depth interview show, I came back to the question I’ve wondered about before: What is the mystery that makes someone the person they come to be, especially when, based on their childhood, it’s probably the last thing that anyone could ever have predicted.
Alice came from a sharecropper’s family of eight children. Alice was the youngest. The life sharecroppers led was really untenable. Her family was at the mercy of the person whose farm they took care of. They had no home but what hovel was given to them. Her father, who worked unconscionably long hours, once asked for a raise from $10.00 a month to $12.00. The lady who owned the land made it outrageously clear that she would never pay him a cent more, and she called him names and made sure he had no shred of dignity left, and life was such that Alice’s father had no choice but to continue to work for this woman.
To be a sharecropper was the lowest rung in the ladder. Alice was the great granddaughter of a slave. Her parents had no education — truly never had a chance for it. Alice’s mother worked as a farmhand and cleaned houses.
YET from that life, their talented youngest child, Alice Walker, became educated, received a Pulitzer Prize for her writing, graced the world and lives a life of simple dignity. I hoped that her hard-working parents got to see the day their youngest daughter received the Pulitzer Prize, but I’ll tell you more about that in a minute.
What makes a person with virtually no chance at all come to lead a spectacular life and contribute so much to the world? Why Alice? What were the odds of her becoming educated at all?
From Google, I found that Alice’s mother, Minnie Tallulah Grant Walker, somehow knew how important education was for her youngest daughter. She enrolled Alice in the first grade when Alice was four, and excused her from chores so that she could have time for reading and schoolwork. What determination her mother must have had, and what a huge thing that was to make it possible for her daughter to have an education.
Alice’s mother also saved what money she could in the little town in Georgia they lived in, and bought several gifts that had a great impact upon Alice’s life — a sewing machine that enabled Alice to make her own clothes, a suitcase that gave her promise of and permission to travel — and a typewriter! On some level, did Alice’s mother know what her youngest daughter’s future was to be?
How valued education must have been then! Alice and her mother knew without doubt that education was a blessing. What a contrast to today when children, by law, must go to school and, consequently, education often is not valued.
Not only did Alice get the chance to have an education, she was Valedictorian of her high school class and received a scholarship to Spellman College. After two years there, she transferred to Sarah Lawrence College.
A sad thing is that Alice’s father didn’t want Alice to become educated. He feared it would separate Alice from her family. His fear came true. He and Alice did become estranged.
I wonder if they became estranged, not because Alice’s education but because of his fear. If Alice’s father had been proud of her becoming educated instead of fearful, what difference might that have made.
Do any of us know what to make of our childhoods and our family constellations?
Godwriting is a blog by Gloria Wendroff and is about Gloria's daily life as the Godwriter of the Heavenletters project that is having a profound effect on the lives of people around the world.
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