Alice Walker Research Paper

Alice Walker was born February 9, 1944. Walker was born in Putnam, Georgia and is the youngest of eight children, to some African American sharecroppers. The family had Native American ancestry which Walker did some of her writing and spirituality. Minnie Lou (Alice’s mother) worked eleven hours a day for $17 per week to help pay for Alice to attend college. The time they were living is was the time of Jim Crow laws, so her parents resisted landlords who expected the children of black sharecroppers to work in the field at a young age. A white plantation owner said to her that black had “no need for education”. Minnie Lou Walker defended her children, because she believed that it was important for at least one of her kids to have an education.

This was a time when African American were struggling to find their social, cultural, and political identity in American society. At the time, scholars and laypeople were interested in the African American past and the African heritage. Dee represents the Cultural Nationalist who emphasized black culture as means of promoting freedom and equality. Many blacks wanted to establish themselves as a visible and unified group and take control of how the group was named. Many black American look to their African roots to keep up with the past. Alice Walker may have created Hakim-a-barber with this new, younger, more militant generation in mind. Basically, Walker’s story is a critique of individuals who misunderstood some ideals of the black consciousness groups promoted during that

Dee tried to understand her African roots by changing her name. Trying to recover her “ancient” roots, she refuses to accept her more intermediate heritage that her mother and sister share. The actions and physical attributes of Dee, Mrs. Johnson, and Maggie are examples of their relations to their culture. The man Dee brings home take on a Muslim name and doesn’t eat pork, or collards. He’s refusing to take part in the African American culture. He’s there to try and help Dee validate her identity. About quilts, which were supposed to be given to Maggie when she gets married. They represent the family’s tradition and cultural heritage, but Dee explains that Maggie will put them to everyday use. Dee doesn’t understand that the quilts are made from “everyday life” and materials that were lived in. The things her grandma Dee and Big Dee are not just some things you sure as “art objects” or a culture trend. Along with the bench, she doesn’t understand the things they went through to make