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Alice Walker Research Paper

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Alice Walker, famed author and civil rights activist, was born to sharecropper parents in Eatonville, Georgia in February of 1944. Alice was the youngest daughter of sharecroppers; her mother also worked as a maid to help support her eight children. At a young age, an incident with her older brothers seriously damaged her eye when her brother Curtis accidentally shot Walker in the eye with a BB gun while playing “cowboys and Indians.” To avoid getting into trouble with their parents, Walker’s frightened brothers made up a story and convinced naive Alice to go along with it. The result was Walker lost the sight in her right eye. A disfiguring white scar developed. Walker became very self-conscious of this mark. This incident molded her early years and caused her to largely withdraw from the world around her. She felt ugly and disfigured, so she found solace in reading and writing poetry. This incident and her modest family roots contributed to her writing style exposed in later works.
Alice went on to graduate as valedictorian of her high school and attended Spelman College and Sarah Lawrence College on scholarships. She graduated in 1965; this was the same year her first short story was published. Walker volunteered in the voter registration drives of the 1960s and …show more content…

Walker’s work include the strength of bonding with other females, equality for all, human adversity, and struggles faced particularly by African Americans. Walker penned several novels, all of which mixed the quest for civil rights of black citizens and the struggle for women’s rights as equals. This valiant effort caused much criticism for Ms. Walker. She was often accused of treating males unfairly; she was accused of male bashing. In fact, she was labeled as a “feminist at the expense of black men.” She strongly denied this allegation. Her response to the label was that she was trying to promote equality and have equal recognition for females as well as

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