Mar 26, 2019

Celebrating Alice Walker

Our final Women’s History Month spotlight is Alice Walker, an acclaimed novelist, essayist and poet who is perhaps most widely known for authoring The Color Purple. This book went on to win both the National Book Award for hardcover fiction and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was later adapted into a feature film. It’s a raw and heartbreaking depiction of black experience in the American South and the interplay of class, race, power and oppression, as well as generational disenfranchisement.

Walker was also a leading voice of the Civil Rights Movement, taking part in the 1963 March on Washington. Another well-known work called In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens: Womanist Prose is a reflection of both the personal and political, offering nonfiction perspectives on the Civil Rights movement, as well as the experiences of black women in relation to their family, mothers, each other and white society. Through her body of work, Walker is credited with coining the term “womanist” to describe “a black feminist of color.”

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.” -- Alice Walker

Walker and the other women that we’ve highlighted this month are four incredible feminists whose voices have left their mark on history. It’s no secret that women have helped push this country forward in ways that are often erased in the face of patriarchal power structures that invisibilize the contributions of women -- particularly women of color. Women’s history month may be coming to a close, but we hope you will join us in honoring the contributions of women in your life all year long.