Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (1944), American writer and activist. The first African-American author to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, in 1982, for her novel The Color Purple.
11 July 1968
After many months of wondering how I, as a married woman, could keep a personal diary, I found the answer (I think), last night, quite by accident. And it happened when a third person, a girl we love, hurt my husband's feelings. Then I realized, feeling his pain, that he is my personal life and that a real connection has happened between us.
He was touched because Barbara1, our closest friend, still greets her essentially as white. I think I'm the only black person who doesn't do that. In truth, we are two beings stranded on the American island, two people against the worlds of black and white, but how strong this makes our love! It reminds me of Voznesensky's poem about oppressed lovers who become like two shells that enclose their pain, but also their powerful joy, since the gods have allowed them such a grand, almost heroic emotion.
How boring my life would have been as a preacher's wife!
Now that I have found that my voice is loud enough, on occasion, for two people, I have much to write about that I could not write about before. There is a growing hostility of blacks in Jackson toward whites—but not toward the white Mississippi braggarts who deserve it, but toward the white civil rights workers who, in my opinion, do not deserve it.
I'm thinking now about how Ronnie's head was cracked open by a young boy back in Bolivar. Ronnie2! Who got his ass kicked every summer in Mississippi taking blacks to the polls – because he’s white and the black guy knew he wouldn’t fight him and call the police! It’s so unfair. Then there’s poor Ted Seaver, who was made a fool of because he was a more effective organizer than his black “friends.” Then there’s that black guy from Boston, who left his family to come work in Mississippi (wife, kids; why didn’t he “work” in Roxbury, he needs it just as much as Mount Bayou?), who threatened to beat up my husband? If he had laid hands on him, I would have wanted to kill him and there’s no doubt I would want Mel to sue him. Enough is enough! As long as I’m allowed, as long as Mel works to make this world a better place, he’s not guilty of anything. And of course, to me there are no white people, only white minds. Malcolm taught us this, I doubt Baldwin had it quite clear. How can my husband be white when we are all trying to make the world ready for our brown babies, our friends who have different skin tones, for black people by choice?
Barbara disagreed with Mel's belief in the ability of this country to crush any black uprising. But she and I have said the same thing, made the same grim observation. Yet, after all this time, she is still moved to hear him say he is white. And while it is easy to understand her anger, we are deeply hurt—because we thought that among our small circle of friends we had abolished the concept of color based solely on skin color.
15 July
It's much more difficult to train Andrew than Myshkin. Andrew is also more nervous, very tense. He bites more and his teeth are certainly sharper. But he is becoming a big healthy dog and we are pleased that he can gain two pounds in four days. We have had him for two weeks.
How strange it is – I'm having trouble writing honestly and well. Is it because I got up the courage to tell Mel that maybe one day I'll publish this diary? And then the things that have really shaken me – the death of Dr. King, the death of Bobby Kennedy3 – I can't put them into any literary form. I can't write a poem about King anymore, it's like dancing on his grave. That certainly says a lot about my poetry. I think it's ironic, much more satirical, more inclined towards what Dr. King didn't have in mind. He needed the poetry of Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, their deep, slow, allegorical poetry – as Kennedy had done, strangely enough – and perhaps, on the other hand, Robert Browning.
I wonder if walking those miles with Kung was the cause of my baby’s loss – or was it my tribute to the man who had made my life bearable? Funny then how I can’t face the thought of bringing a child into the world where Dr. King no longer lives. How many times have I told Mel, “I’ll stay here – I mean the place – as long as he can stay.” After that, I was crushed. And now I feel more than ever the futility of staying here, and yet, where can one go? How necessary it is for our “leaders” to find an answer to just this question. Integration leads to assimilation – everyone becomes polite, even if they are too brown – that’s disgusting! But separatism won’t work either – and besides, is anyone willing to trust their life to a possible end in death? No, without a shadow of a doubt!
Misery often makes us know what we believe in. That is, what we both believe and will give in to.
I've been thinking about James Baldwin and I need to write him a letter. Some people love him, some people adore Ellison's book.4, that is. Spending a night with Baldwin would be fascinating, maybe just watching him sleep, or, before bed, brushing his teeth, rubbing those big eyes with my hand. A night with Ellison would probably be like a day with any man and his wife who have a view of the Hudson River from their window.
I just came across a wonderful word – adamantine. It means strong, unbreakable, like a diamond.
How hard this work and social life is for Mel! Someone else's name on his work, a mean old man keeps him away from playing poker and golf! They don't trust and love him as a white man, as Barbara does, and he really doesn't make a big deal out of it. How could I? When I have all that acquired distrust of whites except the one I have chosen among others and really after a great respect for the standards of their side.
The race issue (can anyone call the cause of all that pain and blood an "issue"?); but nevertheless, it has ruined all our souls here in America. We have no sweet souls anymore, if need be, we never have.
There is so much anger in me towards anyone who even remotely hurts my husband. What a strange and wonderful feeling to be like a mother to her son. It breaks my heart when he is hurt, or sad. It is as if an unbearable burden has been pressed down on me until I see him smile and can believe that he is okay…
And now we own our own home. For a very short time, of course. And if the certifier calls before I'm certified pregnant, what are we going to do? Go to Canada? Mel doesn't like us leaving, which is why, I guess, we're here in Mississippi. I hate this place, it means we have to leave. Oh God, and I know this is all hypocrisy—I know you helped my mother—keep us together. I don't care where we're going, as long as we're together.
If we were in the South—even in Atlanta—I'd be in school. A lazy person has to have a bunch of degrees to impress other lazy people, but people are effectively bureaucrats. Even Jackson State, that place where educated runaways are rare, has the face to demand credentials that look good on their catalog. It's no big deal, they're trying to elevate their school, their education, and they still don't know where to start, not in college, but in the crucial place where the sperm meets the egg.
***
There is nothing more depressing to me than the thought of having a job. What am I supposed to do there, in functional life?
I'm obsessed with the idea of writing the next novel about eight post-Spelman ladies (not a bad title!). Making it revolve around Suicide of an American girlEight women, eight truly different characters, their backgrounds, loves, etc. Discovered on their way to Anna's funeral.
It could be a basic study of types of black women.
Left frigid, frustrated
The revolutionary who hates whites, loves whites
Return to Africa – Ana
The beautiful rich housewife
One on the Finnish stock exchange
Southern bourgeoisie
Northern hippie woman horrified by illiteracy of Spelman College students
The actress who chooses Paris
18 July
I am amazed at myself. Once again I am getting excited to write. How incredible it is in a way to thirst for pen and paper, to need them, as if they were water…
Making a quilt the old-fashioned way, "piece by piece." I wonder if Mom would be surprised. I've never been one to worry about housework. But making a quilt isn't a chore. It's an art, a creation, a craft. And it saves money while keeping Sears and Roebuck out of your bed.
My neighbor thinks I'm smart. Me! And I can see how it's racking her brains to understand why I treat Andrew like a child. They believe, clearly, that a man should treat his dog like a nigger. Woe to us, how we transmit cruelty. But Andrew's job will be to protect me, and in Mississippi only Andrew and my dear husband will do that.
A special mail letter from the Library of Congress. Amazing. They want to know this and that about THE FORMER, so they can prepare the catalog cards. I'll be at the library! How exciting. Much more exciting than anything else that's come out about the book.
I feel very strange, people really annoy me. Almost all people. I'm starting to understand why Muriel5 (Rukeyser?) once said he hated teaching at Sarah Lawrence. We should feel as free as possible from other minds intruding on, probing into our own. My need for privacy seems almost paranoid. But I enjoy the presence of people, occasionally…
I like to love people to the extreme, as I love Baldwin. And Baldwin, who is simply trying to live, could do the same in a castle, with a moat and a dozen servants. I wonder if that would make him happy. That he identifies with the poor in spirit, that is, with everyone involved in the human condition...
I am bored, I think, seeing the words black, white, negro, colored. And isn't it sad that my eye can distinguish "Negro" on a newspaper page without being able to see a single other word?
Notes:
1 Barbara Greene worked in Mel Leventhal's office and had become a close friend of the couple.
2 A young Jewish man who had traveled to the South to work in the civil rights movement.
3 Martin Luther King Jr., the Civil Rights leader, was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was shot on June 5, 1968, and died the next day.
4 Refers to the novel Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison.
5 Muriel Rukeyser was a poet and social justice activist; she had worked at Sarah Lawrence College while Alice Walker was a student there.
/Taken from Gathering Blossoms Under Fire – The Journals of Alice Walker 1965 – 2000, Simon & Schuster, 2022
/Translation Gazeta Express
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