1. ALICE WALKER “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any” by Alice Walker This enlightening presentation on Alice Walker is presented by EvaMarie Chambers

2. Who is Alice Walker?  She was born on February 9, 1944 in Eatonton Georgia.  She was the daughter of a sharecropper.  She was also the youngest of eight children.  When she was eight years old, she was accidently shot in the face by a BB gun. This accident caused her partial blindness, and also made her withdraw from activities.  She began writing poems to ease her pain and loneliness from withdrawing from childhood activities.  She came to realize writing was her peace and happiness. She had support from family to continue writing, which led her to continue on.

3. Educational Background  She received a scholarship to attend Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia.  She received another scholarship and transferred to Sarah Lawrence in New York.  She was a foreign exchange student her junior year in Africa.  She completed her studies in 1965 and graduated with her bachelor’s degree.

4. After she graduated she…  She worked as a social worker.  She worked at a voter registration drive in Georgia.  She also worked at the Head Start program which helped poor children receive education.  She taught at many colleges including; Jackson State College in Tennessee, Tougaloo College in Mississippi, Wellesley College in Massachusetts, and at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.  She also worked on Women’s Rights.  She began her work in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s in Mississippi.  She also wrote for a magazine called Ms.  Her most notorious career field, an author.

5. A little about her writing style…  Alice walker wrote all types of pieces: poems, essays, short stories, and novels.  She wrote many fiction novels.  A majority of her stories focused on rape, violence, isolation, troubled relationships, multigenerational perspectives, sexism, and even racism.  She also wrote about and the strength of family and community.  Also popular among her stories were about spirituality and self worth.

6. Some of her essays….  “The Temple of my Familiar Life”  “Possessing the Secret of Joy”  “Light in a Time of Darkness”  She also wrote a picture book called “There is a Flower at the Tip of My Nose Smelling Me”

7. Notorious Novels and Short Stories  Her first novel was The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970), this story is about the relationships between a family, and the harsh realities of love.  Following her first novel she wrote Meridian (1976), which was about people trying to make sense of their lives in the 1960’s.  Her third novel is her most famous The Color Purple (1982), is about the life of Celie, and how race, gender, and class held her down, and how she found life by loving another woman. This novel also won the Pulitzer Prize for best fiction. This novel was also made into a major motion picture which featured Oprah, and Whoopi Goldberg.  In Love & Trouble (1973) is her set of short stories which included Every Day Use, the excerpt from our text book.

8. In Love & Trouble Summarized  In the short story “Everyday Use” is about the clashing of family members and their differences.  The mother is the narrator for this story, and she is describing the feelings of her daughter coming home from college.  The characters include Mother, Dee the older sister, and Maggie the younger sister.  There was an accident that left Maggie badly scarred.

9. Hope you enjoyed! Thank You!