The document summarizes American author and activist Alice Walker's life and work focusing on how her writings highlighted issues of race and gender having been influenced by her involvement in the civil rights movement as a student in the 1960s. It notes she won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for her novel "The Color Purple" and credits Martin Luther King III for inspiring her activism.

1. Alice Walker
Race and Gender highlighted in
writings, influenced by her activism
By Gayle Fergusson
Troy University

2.  Born February 9, 1944,
American author, poet and
activist Alice Malsenior Walker
wrote both fiction and essays
about race and gender.
 As a student of Spellman College
in the 1960s, Walker got a chance to
meet Martin Luther King III and credits
him for her choice to be an activist.
 Won Pulitzer Prize and National Book
Award for Fiction for “The Color Purple”,
O. Henry award for “Kindred Spirits”.

3.  Slavery
 Poverty
 Abuse
 Gender
“Part of the creation of the color purple is just to be more intimate
with my ancestors in a time when I didn’t exist.” Walker

4. Women’s struggle (images the acclaimed movie by Stephen
Spielberg)
“Part of the creation of the color purple is just to be more intimate
with my ancestors in a time when I didn’t exist.” Walker

5.  “In the early 1960s, the fundamental prize
sought by the civil rights movement was
something that African Americans had never
known: full legal equality.” (JFK in History)

6. 1960 Women’s Liberation Movement

7.  Poverty
 Racism
 Gender
“Written during the heyday of the Black Power movement, when
African Americans were trying to gain racial equality and called
for self determination and racial dignity.“ (Johannes)

9.  Hoffman, Melody K. The Color Purple. Jet 119.6 14 Feb 2011: 42.
Johnson Pub. Co. 3 Dec 2012.
 "Civil Rights Movement." JOHN F. KENNEDY PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY
AND MUSEUM. n. page. Web. 6 Dec. 2012.
<http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/Civil-Rights-
Movement.asp&xgt;>
 N. Sink, . "1960's - 1980's Women's Liberation Movement ." (2008):
n. page. Web. 5 Dec. 2012.
<http://novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/evans/his135/Events/womenslli
beration/womensliberation.htm>
 Alice Walker: Everyday Use, Uncommon Art “Films Media Group”
(2003) Web. 5 Dec. 2012
http://ffh.films.com/id/5979/Alice_Walker_Everyday_Use_Unco
mmon_Art.htm
 Johannes Timpe, 2005, Alice Walker - Everyday
Use, München, GRIN Verlag
GmbH, <http://www.hausarbeiten.de/faecher/vorschau/109496.
html