APPENDICES
I. Alice Walker's Biography
Alice Malsenior Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American author and activist. She wrote the critically acclaimed nove she won the Meridian and The Third Life of Grange Copeland among other works.
Early Life
Walker was born i to Willie Lee Walker and Minnie Lou Tallulah Grant. Her father, who was, in her words, "wonderful at math but a terrible farmer," earned only $300 ($4,000 in 2013 dollars) a year from family income by working as a maid. She worked 11 hours a day for $17 per week to help pay for Alice to attend college.
Growing up with an oral tradition, listening to stories from her grandfather (who was the model for the character of Mr. in The Color Purple), Walker began writing, very privately, when she was eight years old. "With my family, I had to hide things," she said. "And I had to keep a lot in my mind."
On March 17, 1967, she marrie in residence at and was a consultant in black history to the Friends of the Children of Mississippi Head Start program.
Writing Career
Walker's first book of poetry was written while she was a senior at Sarah Lawrence. She took a brief sabbatical from writing while working in Mississippi in the civil rights movement. Walker resumed her writing career when she joine magazine as an editor before moving to norther 1975 article "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston", published in Ms. magazine, helped revive interest in the work of and influenced her subject matter. In 1973, Walker and fellow Hurston scholar Charlotte D. Hunt discovered Hurston's unmarked grave i women chipped in to buy a modest headstone for the gravesite.
In addition to her collected short stories and poetry, Walker's first novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland– which follows the life of Grange Copeland, an
In 1982, Walker published what has become her best-known work, The Color Purple. The novel follows a young troubled black woman fighting her way through
not just racist white culture but patriarchal black culture as well. The book became a bestseller and was subsequently adapted into a critically acclaim directed by Steven Spielberg featuring Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg, as well as a
Walker is the co-founder of Wild Tree Press, a feminist publishing company in Anderson Valley, California. She and fellow writer 1984.
Walker has written several other novels, including
descendants of characters from The Color Purple). She has published a number of collections of short stories, poetry, and other writings. Her work is focused on the struggles of black people, particularly women, and their lives in a violent society. Walker is a leading figure in liberal politics.
In 2013, Alice Walker released two new books, one of them entitled The Cushion in the Road: Meditation and Wandering as the Whole World Awakens to
Being in Harm's Way. The other was a book of poems entitled The World Will
Follow Joy Turning Madness into Flowers (New Poems).
Activism
Alice Walker's official website (alicewalkersgarden.com) describes her as having been “an activist all of her adult life” who believes “that learning to extend the range of our compassion is activity and work available to all." She is a staunch defender of bot writer, and travels the world to stand on the side of the poor, and the economically, spiritually and politically oppressed. She also stands, however, on the side of the revolutionaries, teachers and leaders whom she believe seek change and transformation of the world.”
Walker met part in the voters in Georgia and Mississippi. On March 8, on the eve of the authors during an anti-war rally outside the White House. In an interview wit
in fact, we are one family. And so it would have felt to me that we were going over to actually bomb ourselves." Walker wrote about the experience in her essay, "We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For."
Walker was also greatly influenced by
single handedly rescu
to Hurston's works, and made revived her popularity that had risen during the Harlem Renaissance. Walker was so moved by Hurston that she went to her blank tombstone and wrote "Southern Genius" on it. She also wrote in a personal essay, “I have come to know Zora through her books.”
Walker was also a great feminist and worked to make women realize their significance and ability. In 1983, Walker coined the term “Bla She sai
In November 2008, Walker wrote "An Open Letter t was published online by "Brother Obama" and wrote "Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina, and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about."
In March 2009, Walker and 60 other female activists from the anti-war group Code Pink traveled t deliver aid, to meet with open their borders with Gaza. She wrote about her meeting with an elderly Palestinian woman who upon accepting a gift from Walker said “May God protect you from the Jews.” Walker responded “It’s too late, I already married one.” referring to her former husband, a Jewish civil rights lawyer whom she had divorced in the 1970s. She planned to visit Gaza again in December 2009 to participate in the flotilla to Gaza that attempted to break Israel's naval blockade. Explaining her reasons, she cited concern for the children and that she felt that "elders" should bring "whatever understanding and wisdom we might have gained in our fairly long lifetimes, witnessing and being a part of struggles against oppression."
supports the Walker refused to authorize a Hebrew translation of her book The Color Purple, citing what she called Israel's "apartheid state."
In an article for The Guardian, Walker explained her involvement in the Gaza flotilla, saying that “during this period of eldering it is good to reap the harvest of one's understanding of what is important, and to share this, especially with the young.” She also compared herself and her fellow flotilla members to Gandhi and his followers.
Her involvement in the flotilla also occasioned a Jerusalem Post article by supporting terrorism against Israel,” Dershowitz charged that she had “now resorted to bigotry and censorship against Hebrew-speaking readers of her writings,” comparing her refusal to allow a Hebrew translation of The Color Purple to “neo-Nazi author readers.” As for her involvement in the flotilla, Dershowitz accused her of “provid[ing] material support for terrorism” and said that Walker “should not be permitted to get away with such bigotry. Nor should her actions be seen as morally elevated.”
boycotting Israelis. She is boycotting the government of Israel. She is boycotting what she sees as state-subsidized symbols of racism that remind her of Apartheid South Africa.” To call Walker an anti-Semite, Goldberg claimed, was to “devalue” the experience of her, Goldberg's, grandfather at Treblinka.
The
book on meditation, as
to a shocking new level, revealing the depth of her hatred of Jews and Israel to a degree that we have not witnessed before. Her descriptions of the conflict are so grossly inaccurate and biased that it seems Walker wants the uninformed reader to come away sharing her hate-filled conclusions," the ADL wrote.
Walker was disinvited in 2013 from giving a speech at the University of Michigan, reportedly because a donor to the university disapproved of her views on Israel. On her website, Walker argued that “women must be in control of our own finances. Not just in the family, but in the schools, work force, and everywhere else. Until we control this part of our lives, our very choices, in any and every area, can be denied us.” Ms. Walker was re-invited shortly thereafter. Walker posted an open letter to singer Tel Aviv. “I believe we are mutually respectful of each other’s path and work,” Walker wrote. “It would grieve me to know you are putting yourself in danger (soul danger) by performing in an apartheid country that is being boycotted by many global conscious artists.” Keys rejected the plea.
Race Get Off Your Knees (in which Icke claims that Earth's moon is actually a
“gigantic spacecraft” transmitting “fake reality broadcast in much the same way as portrayed in the Matrix movie trilogy") would be her choice if she could have only
one
the book she "felt it was the first time I was able to observe, and mostly imagine and comprehend, the root of the incredible evil that has engulfed our planet." Jonathan Kay of the National Post argued that Walker's public praise for Icke's book was “stunningly offensive” and that by taking it seriously she was disqualifying herself "from the mainstream marketplace of ideas."
