Today In Black LGBTQ+ History: ALICE WALKER

TODAY IN BLACK LGBTQ+ HISTORY, we celebrate Alice Walker, an American writer, poet, and activist known for her insightful portrayal of African American life and culture. Her 1982 novel The Color Purple was the subject of a major motion picture and Broadway musical. 
 
Born in Eatonton, Georgia, the daughter of sharecroppers, Walker was injured in a childhood accident that blinded her in one eye. Her mother felt Walker would be better suited for writing than doing chores. Her writing and academic prowess afforded her a scholarship to Spelman College, where she studied for two years before transferring to Sarah Lawrence College, where she graduated in 1965. 
 
After graduation, Waker moved to Mississippi to become involved in the Civil Rights Movement. She began teaching and writing poetry, short stories, and essays. In 1967, Walker married Melvyn Rosenman Leventhal, a Jewish civil rights lawyer and the couple became the first legally married interracial couple in Mississippi. The couple had a daughter before divorcing in 1976. 
 
Walker continues to publish essays, short stories, and poems including a memoir, The Chicken Chronicles, in 2011. In the mid-1990s, Walker had a relationship with the singer Tracy Chapman, but prefers not to label her own sexuality.