Civil Rights Movements In The Color Purple By Alice Walker

Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, was a Civil Rights Movement activist. She grew up in a poor family of sharecroppers in Georgia- which relates to the main character of The Color Purple, Celie (“Alice Walker Biography”). Celie comes from a poor family, is married into a cropping family, and later becomes more financially stable as life progresses just as Alice Walker does. In most of Walker’s work, she writes about black women’s accomplishments during the time period. Stories she had heard of her past generation were used to leave their mark and honor her ancestors. Walker began her love for reading and writing when she was eight years old. At this time period of her life, Walker got into an accident where she was shot in the eye with a BB gun. Facing years of solitude from embarrassment of her looks, her eye was surgically fixed at the age of 14. Just like Celie, Walker worked on finding her true worth, loving herself, and working towards independence (Horsley). Published in 1982, the book brought light to civil and women’s rights. At the time, blacks were still being judged and criticized for their race- even though laws had been passed for equality. In the 1980’s, racial justice movements

In The Color Purple the main character, Celie, undergoes conflict as a women with the men at the time. Celie’s husband gives a good example of how women were treated, “Men and women not suppose to wear the same thing, he said. Men spose to wear the pants” (Walker 270). At the time, Celie was making pants for a living- selling to both men and women. Women during this time period were frowned upon for wearing anything other than dresses; however, Celie starts a trend for other women around her to stand up for what they want. Figuratively as well, men were known for “wearing the pants in the relationship.” Although, the plot shows that as women begin to wear pants, their rights and roles are slowly turning