The Color Purple / The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker

Walker has taught African American women’s studies to college students at Wellesley, the University of Massachusetts at Boston, Yale, Brandeis, and the University of California at Berkeley. When her marriage to Leventhal ended in 1977, Walker moved to northern California, where she lives and writes today. She completed her first novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland, in 1969, the same year that her daughter, Rebecca Grant, was born. She also served as the writer-in-residence for Jackson State College (later Jackson State University) and Tougaloo College. They lived in Jackson, Mississippi, where Walker worked as the Black history consultant for a Head Start program. degree from Sarah Lawrence in 1965, Walker married Melvyn Rosenman Leventhal, a white civil rights attorney. Walker also registered Black voters in Liberty County, Georgia, and later worked for the New York City Department of Welfare. in recognition of her attendance at the Youth World Peace Festival in Finland. In 1962 she was invited to the home of Martin Luther King Jr. After transferring to Sarah Lawrence College in New York, Walker continued her studies as well as her involvement in civil rights. During the two years she attended Spelman she became active in the civil rights movement. In 1961 Walker left Eatonton for Spelman College, a prominent school for Black women in Atlanta, on a state scholarship. Although Walker eventually became high school prom queen and class valedictorian, she continued to feel like an outsider, nurturing a passion for reading and writing poetry in solitude. Much of her embarrassment dwindled after a doctor removed the scar tissue six years later. Teased by her classmates and misunderstood by her family, Walker became a shy, reclusive youth. At eight years old, her brother scarred and blinded her right eye with a BB gun in a game of cowboys and Indians.

Early Life and EducationĪlice Malsenior Walker was born in Eatonton on February 9, 1944, the eighth and youngest child of Minnie Tallulah Grant and Willie Lee Walker, who were sharecroppers.

Alice Walker Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The Color Purple / The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker