Take the Alice Walker Tour
The First African-American Woman to Win a Pulitzer Prize
Alice Walker: A literary icon
Alice Walker, a towering figure in American literature, was born and raised in Eatonton, Georgia, a small town nestled amidst the picturesque lakes and forests of the region. Born in 1944, Walker was the eighth and youngest child of sharecroppers, Minnie Tallulah Grant and Willie Lee Walker. Her upbringing on a sharecropping farm instilled in her a deep understanding of the challenges faced by working-class families, particularly African Americans in the segregated South. Despite the limitations imposed by her circumstances, Walker displayed a remarkable thirst for knowledge from a young age. Encouraged by her mother, who valued education highly, Walker enrolled in school at the age of four and blossomed into a creative writer by the age of eight. These early experiences, imbued with the realities of rural life and the power of education, would profoundly shape Walker’s literary voice and her lifelong commitment to social justice.
The Alice Walker Driving Tour: A Journey Through Her Life
The Pex Theatre
Walker Family Home
This historic one-screen movie theater, operational during Walker’s childhood (1945-1970), offered a glimpse into the entertainment options available during her formative years. The theater briefly reopened in 1986 for the premiere of The Color Purple.
The small home was originally built before the Civil War by the Ward family. Alice’s family moved into this house in 1954 until the end of the decade. A detailed renovation and expansion of the property was completed in the early 2000s by the Copelan family.
Ward's Chapel AME Church
Ward's Chapel AME Church Cemetery
Ward's Chapel AME Church
The Ward Chapel Church was established in 1813 for the Ward family and those they enslaved. Walker’s great-great grandfather was a member of the Ward Chapel Society in the late 1800s. The original church burned in 1919, and its replacement burned in the 1940s. Each rebuild was exclusively funded by the congregation. The current structure was stabilized and rebuilt in 2015 by community members.
ward's chapel ame church cemetery
The area where the cemetery is today was most likely established as a cemetery in the late 1890s to early 1900s. The church was officially granted ownership of this property in 1997 after many years of an understood contract that the cemetery was a part of the church. The Walker family plot is in the left center as facing Ward’s Chapel Road.
Walker's Birthplace
The youngest of eight children, Alice Malsenior Walker was born on February 9th, 1944 to sharecroppers Willie Walker and Minnie Tallulah Grant. Rubble from the chimney is the only current evidence of the home.
Grant Plantation
The birthplace of Minnie Tallulah Grant, Alice’s mother.
Butler Baker School
As a result of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Putnam County consolidated all African American schools into one school with improved funding. Alice attended this school from its opening in 1956 until she graduated in 1961 as valedictorian.
