Anitra Hatcher
Academic and Professional Success
November 2, 2014
Alice Walker After conducting research on several of my favorite authors, I selected Alice Walker’s life and works as the focus of this paper. Walker's accomplishments are substantial. Her novel, The Color Purple, won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book award for fiction. She has authored many other critically acclaimed works, and is recognized as a leading author in the literary world. As I began to dig deeper, however, I found the real reason that I chose to concentrate on this individual. Alice Walker is an African American woman who expresses herself and her life experiences in her writing. I feel like I am connected to the themes and characters Walker develops in her stories. I feel like I am connected to Walker herself. I have been broken in some kind of way or another. I have been abused physically and mentally. Walker has not allowed her struggles to get in the way of her success or happiness. I chose to write about her because she is a woman who faced profound struggles in her young life. She came close to giving up because of a childhood accident and an abortion. Alice Walker was a fierce and determined woman who stayed committed to her goals.
Alice Walker faced many challenges. She was one of seven children. She was born in poverty to sharecropper parents on February 9, 1944. Her father was the grandson of slaves. Her father did not want her to get an education in fear that it would destroy their relationship. Walker's mother enrolled her in the first grade at the age of four. Her mother believed an education would be important to her child. At the age of eight, Walker was accidentally shot in her eye with a BB gun, and was permanently blinded in her right eye. Afterwards she went in to depression and withdrew from the outside world. She spent the next several years reading and writing poems.
Walker went to college and, as her father had predicted, this ended their relationship. Walker traveled to Africa and returned to the United States in 1964. At this time she discovered that she was pregnant. This was extremely difficult for her. Walker became depressed and considered suicide. She was not ready for a child. She had to make the hardest decision of her life; she terminated the pregnancy as an alternative to suicide. This experience was the inspiration that led her to write her first published short story, “To Hell with Dying," It was also the beginning of her literary success.
Walker worked with the civil rights movement fighting for African Americans. She also had to struggle with being involved in the first legally interracial marriage and being a student at a predominantly white women’s college. Walker was often criticized for vernacular writing, focusing on lesbianism and portraying black men in a negative way.
Walker had her first child in 1969. Her daughter, Rebecca, would become a writer and feminist as well. In 1976, Walker published The Meridian; a novel that shares her personal developments while working with the Civil Rights movement. Although she had to endure perception in the South she was able to survive the Jim Crow laws, suicidal depression, interracial relationships, and an illegal abortion. Alice Walker refused to let these obstacles get her down; she used them to build her success.
Education was very important to Alice Walker. She was the Valedictorian of her class and was offered a scholarship to Spellman College in Atlanta. While attending Spellman she traveled to Africa as a part of a study program. Her journey to Africa inspired her to publish The Chicken Chronicles: Sitting with the Angels Who Have Returned with my Memories. This is her memoir and she relates to her experience of raising chickens; it served as an attachment to family, the world, to inspiration, and to spirituality. Walker graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1965. While she attended she spent her summers working with the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia. In 1972 Walker left Mississippi to continue educating others. Immediately she began to teach at Wellesley and Amherst. During her college life, as a student and a teacher, Walker still found time to write and publish books.
Reading the biography of Alice Walker made me think of some of the struggles that I have endured throughout my life. There have been times when I allowed my struggles to be my weakness but I was still able to make it through the obstacles. I went to two different colleges before I decided that I was ready to get a degree. I received my Associates Degree in 2011, and decided I wanted to continue my education and get a Bachelor’s Degree. Presently I am pursuing this goal. There were a lot of things that got in the way of my success. I had to meet those challenges to achieve what was important for my child and myself. A childhood accident left Alice Walker blind, but her loss of vision had an influence on her. Her values and goals changed. Walker’s writing was her strength that led to her success. I can take whatever I am good at and make the most of it. I know that no matter what I go through, or have been through, there is always a way to be successful. Walker's biography reminded me that my life is filled with community and friends. My life experiences, just like everybody else’s, are connected to others (Porter 2003). Although we have much in common, we are all unique. Everyone’s success comes at a different time. Alice Walker’s time came at an early age. I believe taking responsibility is the necessary tool for my own success.
What I have read about Alice Walker gave me confirmation that I have taken the necessary steps to be successful. I have used thirty-five years of my life to understand what I value the most. I have taken the step to reach my goal of becoming a Certified Public Accountant. “The thing about my work is that even when it’s painful, it’s joyful--because I can do it,” says Walker (Porter, 2003). When I am in the dark, I learned to focus on my ability to face darkness with positivity and compassion. I try not to worry about what people say and strive to fulfil my goals. I am not a writer, but my strengths have been developed through my struggles. Like Walker, I work to turn my struggles into successes. This quotation from Alice Walker says it all: “Don’t wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get, you’ve got to make yourself” (Burt-Murray, 2008).

References
Burt-Murray, A. (2008). Finding Joy in the Moment. Essence, Vol. 39 Issue 3, p16.
Porter, E. (2003). Absolute Alice. Black Issues Book Review, Vol. 5 Issue 2, p34-38.