Creative Nonfiction (Course Guide / Lisa Heise)

Alice Malsenior Walker was born the eighth child of sharecroppers Willie Lee and Minnie Lou Grant Walker, on February 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia. Following the physically and emotionally scarring experience of being blinded in her right eye when her brother shot her with his BB gun, Walker turned inward and began recording her emotions. | from Encyclopedia of African-American Literature | Credo Reference (Library Database)

Credo Reference database results page that lists multiple articles about Alice Walker from a variety of reference sources. (Library Database)

My activism--cultural, political, spiritual--is rooted in my love of nature and my delight in human beings. It is when people are at peace, content, full, that they are most likely to meet my expectation, selfish, no doubt, that they be a generous, joyous, even entertaining experience for me. I believe people exist to be enjoyed, much as a restful or engaging view might be. As the ocean or drifting clouds might be. Or as if they were the human equivalent of melons, mangoes or any other kind of attractive, seductive fruit. | The Nation, vol. 279, no. 8, 20 Sept. 2004, p. 26. | Opposing Viewpoints (Gale In Context) (Library Database)

Quote. ""Finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader.... [W]hen the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies." --Alice Walker to President Obama
| Sojourners Magazine, vol. 38, no. 2, Feb. 2009, p. 11. | College (Gale In Context) (Library Database)

"As an elder in our society and of the planet, I care deeply about you, the young women of the world, because you carry the future. Your generation has grown up with war, so it may seem as though it's the only solution, but it is not. When a war happens anywhere on the planet, it endangers everyone because it poisons the earth itself. That air, that water, those fumes and carcinogens from the bombs and machinery go everywhere. As we attempt to harm others, we commit violence against ourselves, and against our beautiful mother, the earth, which is so glorious, so bountiful, and so very good to us." | Seventeen, vol. 67, no. 1, Dec. 2007, p. 168. Gale General OneFile (Library Database)

"Three years ago I visited Rwanda and Eastern Congo. In Kigali I paid my respects to the hundreds of thousands of infants, toddlers, teenagers, adolescents, young engaged couples, married people, women and men, grandmothers and grandfathers, and brothers and sisters of every facial shape and body size, who had been hacked into sometimes quite small pieces by armed strangers, or by neighbors, or by acquaintances and "friends" they knew. These bodies and pieces of bodies are now neatly and respectfully buried in mass graves. Fifteen years ago, these graves were encircled by cuttings of plants that are now sturdy blossoming vines that cover their iron trellises with flowers." | From: Tikkun(Vol. 24, Issue 5) Sept.-Oct. 2009, pp. 33+ Duke University Press | Biography (Gale in Context) (Library Database)

What is of use in these words I offer in memory and recognition of our common mother. And to my daughter. What can the white man say to the black woman? For four hundred years he ruled over the black woman's womb." | The Nation, vol. 248, no. 20, 22 May 1989, pp. 691+. | Opposing Viewpoints (Gale In Context) (Library Database)