Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker, Poem by Bharati Nayak

Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker,

more famously known as Alice Walker

Born on February 9,1944 in Eatonton, Georgia

Youngest of eight children

To Willie Lee Walker and Minnie Lou Tallulah

Her parents worked as sharecroppers

They resisted the landlords

Who expected the children of black sharecroppers to

Work in the fields and said they need no education!

Determined to give her daughter proper education,

Alice's mother worked eleven hours a day

to earn 17 USD per week.


Living in a racially segregated society

Alice was educated in Butler Baker High school

meant for black people

At the age of eight she was injured and got blind in one eye

Which made her very self conscious and painfully shy

But after treatment at the age 14 she became a valedictorian

And voted the most popular girl in the class.


With the help of a scholarship,

Walker was able to attend Spelman College in Atlanta.

She later switched to Sarah Lawrence College in New York.


She became a highly acclaimed novelist

as well as a social worker, teacher and lecturer

Being influenced by Martin Luther King, Jr

She became an active member

of Civil Rights Movement

More vocal for the rights of women of color,

‘Womanism' was a word coined by her

specifically meaning the struggle of black women

At the the intersection of race, class, and gender oppression


In the Year 1982, Alice won Pulitzer prize for her Novel ‘Color Purple ‘

Alice had written many novels

on issues like female sexuality, Female genital mutilation

Which mostly centered around black women's struggle.

Many works of literary gem from Alice's pen

Helped her be inducted into California Hall of Fame.



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