On the 30th anniversary of the publication of “The Color Purple,” we speak with author, poet and activist Alice Walker about her groundbreaking novel and its enduring legacy. Set mainly in rural Georgia in the 1930s, the book tells the story of a young, poor African-American woman named Celie and her struggle for empowerment in a world marked by sexism, racism and patriarchy. The novel earned Walker a Pulitzer Prize in 1983, making her the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer for fiction. Walker explains the origin of the book’s title and explores some of its central characters and their connection to her own family history.
TRANSCRIPT:
AMY GOODMAN: We are on the road in Washington, D.C., on our 100-city Election 2012 Silenced Majority Tour. We are heading to Charlottesville, Virginia tonight.
Well, today, in a Democracy Now! special, we spend the hour with the legendary author, poet, activist, Alice Walker. She is the first African-American woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She won it in 1983 for her renowned novel The Color Purple. The novel also won the the National Book Award for Fiction and was later adapted into a film and musical by the same name. On the 30th anniversary of the book’s publication, we’ll talk about its lasting legacy. Set mainly in rural Georgia in the 1930s, the book tells the story of a young, poor African-American woman named Celie and her struggle for empowerment in a world marked by sexism, racism and patriarchy.
In 1985, The Color Purple was adapted into a film directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Oprah Winfrey. In this clip from the film, two of the main characters have a tense exchange. A strong, independent woman named Sofia tells long-abused Celie that she’s struggled all her life and won’t let anyone beat her down.
SOFIA: All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my uncles. I had to fight my brothers. A girl child ain’t safe in a family of mens, but I ain’t never thought I had to fight in my own house! I loves Harpo, God knows I do. But I’ll kill him dead ’fore I let him beat me.
HARPO: And that’s a hoofprint. Isn’t that a hoofprint there, Pa?
ALBERT: No, that look like a fistprint right there.
HARPO: No, no, sir. No, sir, ain’t no fist touch my face. No, sir.
SOFIA: Now, you want a dead son-in-law, Miss Celie? You keep on advising him like you doin’.
AMY GOODMAN: As the novel is based—as the novel it’s based on celebrates the 30th anniversary, we’re joined now by the renowned author Alice Walker herself to further discuss its legacy. We’ll also speak to her about other writings, her social and political activism in support of the Palestinians, and about the coming presidential election.
Alice Walker, welcome to Democracy Now!
ALICE WALKER: Thank you so much.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s great to be with you. You were yesterday before a crowd of about 1,200 people in the audience at the Fall for the Book Festival in Arlington, Virginia. You read from The Color Purple. You talked about its importance. Tell us, on this 30th anniversary this year, your thoughts about what brought you to write this seminal work.
ALICE WALKER: Actually, I wanted to spend more time with my grandparents—and they had died, you know, long ago—and my parents, and so I set out to write a book in which I could really live for a year or two and be with them by creating characters who resembled them and by giving them a life that they might have had, that, in fact, many of them did not have.
AMY GOODMAN: For especially young people who may not have—definitely they’ve probably heard of The Color Purple, but may not have read it, just lay out the story for us.
ALICE WALKER: Well, the story is about Celie and—who was abused by her stepfather. She lost her own father, who was lynched. And this is part of the story that is rarely talked about, that her own father was lynched because he was so successful as a businessman in the South, when black people were not supposed to be successful. And then she became the victim of her stepfather and raped. And she had two children, who were taken away from her and ended up in Africa with her sister, who had gone there as a missionary’s helper. It basically is the struggle of someone who thinks she has no voice and has no place and writes letters to God because she has nobody else to write to. And then she discovers that the god that she’s writing to is deaf, because he’s basically the Christian god that has been imposed on black people. And at that point, she starts writing to her sister. And eventually she understands that divinity is all around us and that we are a part of it and it’s in nature.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to another clip from the film, The Color Purple. In this scene, Celie finally stands up to her husband, who goes simply by the name “Mister.”
CELIE: Until you do right by me, everything you think about is gonna crumble.
SOFIA: Don’t do it, Miss Celie. Don’t trade places with what I’ve been through.
SHUG: Come on, Miss Celie. Let’s go to the car.
SOFIA: He ain’t worth it. He ain’t worth it.
ALBERT: Who you think you is? You can’t cuss nobody. Look at you. You’re black, you’re poor, you’re ugly, you’re a woman—you’re nothing at all!
SOFIA: ’Til you do right by me, everything you even think about is gonna fail.
AMY GOODMAN: There you have it. That scene, describe it for our listeners and viewers, Alice Walker.
ALICE WALKER: Well, it’s a scene in which Celie basically curses Mister and all the misters in the world and says to them, “Until you do right by me,” meaning herself as a person but also “me” as the earth, “everything you do will crumble, and everything you do will fail.” And it’s prophetic in that sense, and she somehow knows this. It comes very strongly through her that this is true, that unless people are doing right by the poor of the world, by the downtrodden, and by women, generally, they are doomed. Our culture, our society, our world is doomed.
AMY GOODMAN: And then you’ve got the amazing Shug Avery. I want to ask you about the title of your novel, but first let’s go to Shug, who mentions the color purple in her conversation with Celie.
SHUG: But more than anything, God loves admiration.
CELIE: Are you saying God is vain?
SHUG: No, no, not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field and don’t notice it.
CELIE: Well, are you saying it just want to be loved, like it say in the Bible?
SHUG: Yeah, Celie. Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance and holler, just trying to be loved.
AMY GOODMAN: Shug talking to Celie. Alice?
ALICE WALKER: Yes, and she’s explaining to Celie that, you know, the beauty of nature is what reminds us of what is divine, I mean, that we’re already in heaven, really. It’s just that we haven’t noticed it, and we’ve been diverted by people who want us to believe whatever it is they are basically selling us. But if you pass by the color purple in a field and you don’t even notice it, why should you even be here on the planet? I mean, you should notice what is here, because it is wonderful and amazing and loves you back by its beauty and by its fragrance or however it can love you back.
AMY GOODMAN: And how did that title come to you, The Color Purple?
ALICE WALKER: Because when I was writing the novel, I lived way in the country in Boonville, California, and I went walking through the redwoods and swimming in the river and noticed that in nature purple is everywhere. And it’s interesting because we tend to think that in nature you would see more red, yellow, white, you know, all of those colors. But actually, purple is right there. And in that sense, it’s like the people in the novel. You think that they are unusual, that what’s happening to them is unusual, but actually it’s happening somewhere on your block almost every minute. All the trouble, all of the trials and tribulations of Celie are happening to people all over the planet right now.
AMY GOODMAN: So this book came out 30 years ago.
ALICE WALKER: It did.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about how it changed your life. What had you been doing before, and what happened after?
ALICE WALKER: Well, I live a very secluded life, a very contemplative life and a very meditative one. That is my ideal life. And the notoriety of The Color Purple — and there was a lot of that, as well as, you know, everything else — caused me to be—to feel much more exposed and to have many more demands. When this happened, I didn’t even have an assistant to help me do anything, and so I would handle all of my affairs, including my taxes, by myself. And when I—when all of this happened, a lot of mail and stuff came to my house, and I just put it in a room and closed the door on it for many months, until I realized that I couldn’t actually do that, and I finally got someone to help me. Some of the things are good. Most of the things are very good. But I think that kind of fame that happens in America is actually very destructive, unless you can fortify yourself by whatever practice you can find. Meditation helped me a lot.
AMY GOODMAN: The Pulitzer Prize, first African-American woman to win it for non—for fiction. How did you feel? Where were you when you heard?
ALICE WALKER: I was living in San Francisco, and I thought it was a joke. I had won the National Book Award, I think the week before, and then someone called and said that there was the Pulitzer, which I didn’t know existed for fiction. And it was nice. I mean, I think, you know, I have this thing about prizes, though. I’m suspicious of them. And I think also that they should be delivered to you. They should be brought to your door with flowers and maybe with a violin playing, but that you should never have to leave home to get an award.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break and then come back to this discussion. We’re talking with the legendary author Alice Walker. Stay with us.
Join us in defending the truth before it’s too late
The future of independent journalism is uncertain, and the consequences of losing it are too grave to ignore. To ensure Truthout remains safe, strong, and free, we need to raise $46,000 in the next 7 days. Every dollar raised goes directly toward the costs of producing news you can trust.
Please give what you can — because by supporting us with a tax-deductible donation, you’re not just preserving a source of news, you’re helping to safeguard what’s left of our democracy.