Author Alice Walker Celebrates her 75th Birthday

They had a birthday party for Alice Walker  in her Eatonton, Georgia hometown, and well-wishers from around the country greeted the famous author of ‘The Color Purple’.

Imara Canady and several friends from Atlanta traveled to Eatonton for the one-day event hosted by the Georgia Writer’s Museum.

“As someone who grew up on the powerful words of this iconic writer, it’s magical to be in her hometown and to celebrate the gem of the woman known as Alice Walker,” Canady stated.

Canady, Board Chair of Hammonds House which is a museum for African American fine art in Atlanta, applauded the 200 attendees who “reflect the love and diversity that Walker has committed her life to.”

In 1983 Walker received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel “The Color Purple” which Director Steven Spielberg made into a popular film of the same name starring Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, and Danny Glover.

“I always wanted to be an actress. I never wanted anything in my life more than I wanted to be in ‘The Color Purple,’” Winfrey told Variety. “And have never allowed myself to want anything as much again.”

Walker’s parents were sharecroppers, and she was the youngest of eight children. It was the Jim Crow South and during her birthday celebration, Walker remarked on the change in her hometown.

“It feels very interesting. This is not the Eatonton that I knew,” she remarked. “Even this part of town, I had no idea it was this big. I’d never seen it…I feel also very welcomed. I felt this when they brought the movie, ‘The Color Purple’ here, but at that time, my mother was very ill, and it was difficult to focus on anything.”

Walker developed a love for writing after she suffered an accidental BB shot to her eye when she was eight years old.  It left her partially blind. She began to withdraw, and in her loneliness, she started writing poetry. She attended Spelman College after receiving a scholarship from the state of Georgia for having the highest academic achievements in her class.

For many attending the festivities, Walkers onstage conversation with the audience provided the highlight.

The beloved author said, “Bless yourself and everyone who is in your presence. It is also indicative of the way a butterfly flying anywhere in the world changes the climate on the other side of the planet. Each of us is a butterfly…everything that you do changes the planet somewhere. And, it’s very powerful.”