Inside a clear case on Level 3 of Emory University’s Woodruff Library, is a dark green spiral notebook, its innards crammed with small, flowing handwriting.
The thoughts on those pages birthed a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and inspired a Broadway musical, a devoted following and two movies — the latest film version, a movie musical, will hit theaters nationally on Christmas Day.
The notebook contains entries of Alice Walker’s novel, “The Color Purple.”
The Georgia-born activist, short story writer and author of the bestseller donated her personal records, papers and archives to Emory .
The display is part of a larger exhibit, “At the Crossroads with Benny Andrews, Flannery O’Connor and Alice Walker” at the library, which opened in October.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Gabrielle M. Dudley, assistant director of public services in the Rose Library, said the full Walker collection contains more than 300 boxes of artifacts and this exhibit represents just a small portion. Her items represent one of the most viewed collections in the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library.
Emory acquired Walker’s papers in 2007.
The Walker part of the exhibit includes a photograph of the author as a young woman, family photos, clothes and letters. There are photos of her various world travels and a young Walker dressed in what the author describes as a red-and-white-striped dress her mother made and which she notes “I’m trying to remove the chewing gum I’m sitting on.”
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
“Two of our major collection areas are African American history and culture and a literary and poetry collection,” said Dudley. “Alice Walker fits perfectly at the intersection of those two collecting areas.”
A new movie version of “The Color Purple” opens in theaters nationwide Christmas Day. Dudley hopes the new movie will increase awareness about the exhibit and the Walker collection at Emory.
Perhaps it will open Walker’s writings and life to a new generation “who might be curious about how it came to be.”
The current exhibit is open to the public. The full Walker collection is also available to the public but only by appointment.
And that works for Elaine Barnwell, a “The Color Purple” superfan.
She’s read the 1982 novel by Alice Walker, which tells the story of an abused Black woman’s quest for empowerment. She still occasionally picks it up again to read her favorite passages. She’s seen the movie at least 10 times and can quote some of the dialogue from both verbatim.
Barnwell, a retired postal clerk who lives in Mableton, plans to see the new movie musical with friends as soon as she returns from a family cruise for the holidays.
“It reminded me of some family members and even now some men,” she said. ”It was real. It was like my family. We can relate to stuff we understand. I liked the strength of the women that came through and that’s what we’re pushing women to do, push through that crap.”
The new movie stars Danielle Brooks, Fantasia Barrino and Taraji P. Henson and is directed by Blitz Bazawule, a Ghana-born filmmaker, musician and novelist.
The exhibit runs through May 18, 2024. Emory closes during the holidays and will open again on Jan. 2.
The exhibit involved five curators: Gabrielle M. Dudley, Tina Dunkley, Amy Alznauer, Nagueyalti Warren and Rosemary M. Magee, and three archival collections from the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library.
Warren, professor emerita of pedagogy in Emory’s Department of African American Studies, has taught a seminar reading Walker’s works from 1990 to 2018. Dudley and Warren curated the Walker section.
Warren became interested in Walker while living in Jackson, Mississippi. One day she was shopping for a new book to read and a sales clerk suggested “The Color Purple,” which had just hit the shelves.
She had read O’Connor, Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison, but “never a Black woman writer in all of my years of education. I thought she was amazing and the more I read, the more amazing I thought she was.”
Warren read the book twice in two days.
She also saw the first movie.
“I thought it was a good movie but having read the book, I did take issue some of the things (director Steven) Spielberg did.”
Warren said some writings in the collection were unpublished. She found one story that Walker had written titled “Convergence.”
Walker, she said, had even forgotten she had written it. Warren was able to get it published in the Flannery O’Connor Review, a journal dedicated to O’Connor and her work.
Warren said she has spoken to Walker about the current exhibit and the iconic author, who has been to Emory many times, might return before the exhibit ends.
“I think she will be able to interact with a new group of students, some who were not even born when the ‘The Color Purple’ came out. That will be a good thing.”
IF YOU GO
”At the Crossroads with Benny Andrews, Flannery O’Connor and Alice Walker”
Through May 18, 2024. Free. Emory University’s Woodruff Library, 540 Asbury Circle, Atlanta.
Emory and the exhibit are closed during the holidays and will open again on Jan. 2.
For more information about the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library: libraries.emory.edu/rose.
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