Walker, Alice

Alice Walker was born in 1944 in Eatonton, Georgia in the rural deep south to Willie Lee Walker and Minnie Tallulah Walker. She was the youngest of their eight children. Walker grew up in a period of American racial segregation and her family struggled constantly with poverty. Her early brilliance with words and performance was noted by her community and through the help of friends, neighbors, teachers, and state scholarships, she was able to attend two prestigious women's universities: a black women's college, Spelman in 1961, and later Sarah Lawrence College where she graduated in 1965. She married Melvyn Leventhal, a Jewish civil rights lawyer and political activist in 1967. Their daughter Rebecca Walker was born in 1971. Best known for her novel The Color ...