Alice Walker

"Howard Zinn helped us desegregate Atlanta. That was moving because he took a lot of abuse for that. He and Staughton Lynd, a fellow professor who was also from the North, stood with us. They were certainly behind us. In fact, they often stood in front of us. This had a huge impact on me. But one of the reasons I was very careful about speaking about the relationship I had with him and Staughton was because, in a racist society, if you acknowledge a deep love for and a deep debt owed to white teachers, they tend to discredit your own parents and your own community."

6 likes

Source: Black Scholar, Spring 1982

About the author

Alice Walker

Alice Walker

Novelist, Poet

Alice Walker is an American author and activist, best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel 'The Color Purple,' which addresses themes of race, gender, and resilience.

All quotes by Alice Walker →

Same author

More quotes by Alice Walker

See all →
Alice Walker Novelist, Poet

"To acknowledge our ancestors means we are aware that we did not make ourselves, that the line stretches all the way back, perhaps to God; or to Gods. We remember them because it is an easy thing to forget: that we are not the first to suffer, rebel, fight, love and die. The grace with which we embrace life, in spite of the pain, the sorrow, is always a measure of what has gone before."

Read quote