With an air of distinction that reverberated throughout the room, Alice Walker took over the Sports Arena in great brilliance on the evening of April 8.
Walker, a prominent author and civil rights advocate, is perhaps best known for her work The Color Purple. The novel, released in 1982, gave Walker instant notoriety and a Pulitzer Prize. She went on to write many other books, and is accredited with reviving the career of African American author Zora Neale Hurston.
In an event coordinated by the Counseling and Testing Center as part of the 4th Biennial Cultural Competency Conference, Walker’s lecture was based upon the conference’s theme, “From Theory to Practice: Honoring the Seen, Unseen and In Between of Cultural Identity.”
Speaking to a full room of students, faculty, and the general public, Walker spoke of her experiences as a struggling student at Spelman College. Juggling three jobs and a full academic course load, Walker stated that she sympathized with the average college student. “I’m really, very, very happy to be here and I wish I could start over and come here,” she said of Georgia State.
“Sitting wherever you want to sit - this is the dream,” Walker added, looking over the diverse audience that was wholly representative of the population of Georgia State.
Following suit with the occasion’s theme, Walker described her father’s trial as one of the first African American men to vote in Eatonton, Georgia. At that time, Walker’s father, intending to vote for Franklin Roosevelt, was forced to walk past three men with guns to reach the ballot.
To achieve change, “the only nonviolent way was through vote,” Walker said. “It’s in my genes…We must risk everything to achieve change,” she added, speaking of her own fight for social justice.
In one of her main speaking points, Walker stressed the importance of love and hope in our society. “The world is unstable in ways I could not imagine as a child,” she said. Reflecting on the turmoil that plagues the world, Walker shared her secret to enjoying life and discussed what we, as the constituents of this earth, have to do to attain love and compassion not only for ourselves, but for the “creatures of the planet.”
Walker is a major advocate for meditation, and has been practicing this art for many years. Living in a country atmosphere has encouraged peace and stillness in her life and stimulates reflection. “If people raised chickens, they would be so much happier,” Walker joked. Walker encouraged the audience to seek this form of refuge to be able to empathize with everyone and everything.
Reading her own poetry, Walker continued to focus on the disorder in the world and provided hope for a better tomorrow. Explaining how difficult the passing of Michael Jackson was for her, she read “Saint Michael - Lover of Animals and Children.” Describing Jackson as a “slave on the plantation of fame,” Walker spoke of him, as well as others, as saints who suffered to provide us with a moral education. “A part of grief is realizing that they suffered to teach us something,” she said.
Taking a slight detour from the issues at hand, Walker confessed that she had not come to speak with a focused topic at hand. “I’m my own topic,” she said jokingly. After a roar of laughter that burst from the crowd, Walker joked that the audience could ask as many questions about The Color Purple that time allotted. “It was 24 years ago, and people still always have questions,” Walker said.
Alice Walker speaks of love and compassion
Published: Monday, April 19, 2010
Updated: Monday, April 19, 2010 20:04
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Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker spoke to students about growing up in rural Georgia, and the work she’s done since the 1982 publication of The Color Purple.
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