What does it mean to belong to a place? To love it even though it constantly conspires against you for nothing more than the color of your skin? To stay while others exit around you, leaving for more bountiful, welcoming lands? Or to fight for it while those around you cannot bear to? Alice Walker has done all of these things for the land of her birthplace, Georgia, meeting the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr. and even risking jail time to fight for the land she loves. In past generations, Walker’s family never owned the land they worked and loved. "Even if we bought land," she writes, "it was always in danger of being taken away”. This epitomizes the struggle of blacks throughout the South at that time, who are just trying to settle down …show more content…
As shown through “Choice: A Tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., to live in the South and be black during the time she did was only done through necessity: “When I came of age in the early sixties I awoke to the bitter knowledge that in order just to continue to love the land of my birth, I was expected to leave it. [...] To stay willingly in a beloved but brutal place is to risk losing the love and acknowledging only the brutality”. It was considered better to leave and remember fondly from a distance than to stay and grow spiteful. She goes on to say that leaving the South at a young age was “not unusual”, except “for those who ‘could not do any better’, or those whose strength or stubbornness was so colossal they took the risk that others could not bear”. She explains how “[Her] brothers, one by one, leave our home [...] I watched my sisters do the same.” And why would they stay? Walker describes how the even if they bought land, it was always in danger of being taken away. She describes how Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested purely for marching peacefully, for stating his opinion, for speaking out against blatant racism. Yet for Walker, love of birthplace prevailed. She risked being arrested for participating in peaceful protests and registering blacks to vote. Walker was inspired to do this, partly because of Martin Luther King, but also because she wanted to be able to live, free, in the