She is the henry rogers professor of African American studies and greed of writing at Rutgers University new york and a contributing critic at large for the new york times. And like some of you, i have received a very special gift come the expense of being her student. She said dear mentor and beloved friend now nearly for two decades. I am beyond proud and grateful to say a few words to mark this special occasion. I first met salamishah winners just out of college and she was in the process of finishing her dissertation. It is fitting we spent much of our early time getting to know each other in a library on the second floor. At the time i didnt yet know how libraries and books have helped shape her journey. I found that out later, that when she was just out of college and at the same life juncture i was that when we met, she worked at the free library of philadelphia with her sister and with her now partner, solomon. So this event tonight at the free library of philadelphia is a homecoming of sorts and worth noting for the remarkable arc of her journey. When i learned about salamishah been in and out of the library was her love for the written word, as an expressive tool for social change. Once salamishah took me under her wing i not only gain perspective from my life as a curator, educator and writer, i saw that her devotion to her craft was a discipline and a sight to behold. An artistic practice, a motive reflection, a form of Community Building and importantly a path to healing. She fashioned her books even back then as meeting spaces for artists and activists, and as a balm for herself and others to cope, sustain, and rise up. I learned to her public writings and talks that she was survived Sexual Violence, and an advocate for women in people who did not always have the wherewithal or leeway to share their own survival stories. Back then i saw and listen to her testimony. I went to see a show she made with her sister and a circle of women, the story of a a rape survivor and that vincent became a member of the extended family. For those who dont know its an organization that salamishah founded with her sister nearly 20 years ago. To cultivate the next generation of leaders committed to gender equity and racial justice. A long walk home works with artist can students, actors, service and command organizations and cultural institutions to elevate marginalized voices can facilitate healing and accurate social change. For me as a jewish white person dedicated to fighting racial and gender injustice, it was another remarkable gift to be invited in as an ally and an accomplice in the work of a long walk home. Ive gotten to know salamishah as a brilliant, bold, courageous visionary. She and her sister could see a world for decades before me too became a cultural touchstone, the tablet Sexual Violence could be broken. For the last years i served on the board of a long walk home and on behalf of the board and it extended along welcome family we are honored to have salamishah partial dedicate the book in search of the color purple to our group. The other half of that dedication is leading on a reef of course is scheherazade who salamishah writes quote without whom i would not have been able to pick up the pieces and make myself whole again. Those who know no. Wherever you read or hear scheherazade, arent work and brilliance of close by. I remember visiting salamishah mirror after nearly a decade ago the state they should receive copies of the first book. It was also the first day i met their daughter and eldest child. I snapped a photo of salamishah holding her dear daughter sitting upright on a dining room table with her new book leaning against a bouquet of pink roses and green ivy just inches away. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, on the verge of this book arrival in search of the color purple also on the eve of the inauguration of the first black woman Kamala Harris to the office of the vice presidency, and this that trimmers rattling the bedrock of our democracy, another gathering took place around her table. A muchneeded session to reflect, gather and celebrate a new milestone, the release of in search of the color purple. This time amidst all the turbulence the group of us found peace, marking the emergence of the book. That table, the very table we sat at years before was now set up for resume. It still had flowers that this time i cascade of purple all around the table in the room surrounding salamishah. Friends, family, mentors, students, artists, and long walk home all rain in the occasion from afar. Also there was Gloria Steinem and doctor beverly who each contributed a forward and an afterword respectively to the book. Syndicate network preteen joined by her younger brother sidney made a a special book of draws in honor of their mother salamishah. We got to learn more about the book and its meticulous and Creative Engagement with the entirety of the color purple, the book, the film, the musical and the cultural afterlife. And learned about the interviews of salamishah gathered for the book including with alice walker, Oprah Winfrey, and the sharing of her own life story. And before the book could leap into the world with its release this month, that day we paused instant gratitude once again to salamishah for all she is at all who she helps us to become. Fuller, wiser, more devoted to beauty and justice, and using words to open minds, speak truth about to power and be transformed through feelings. Gloria steinem writes in the books introduction, if you could get one true thing, it stays true wherever it goes. I think of salamishah like him our work, her art, relationship, her and her journey all of that together has singular truth, a radiant life force. This includes the books and essays she is written and the ones she has on her mind as it will get to read when their ready for the world one day. But for now in search of the color purple is finally with us. I the book, read the book, give the book to others. And for now please join me in virtual applause from wherever you are to welcome Salamishah Tillet and errin haines in conversation to mark the release of in search of the color purple. Wow, thats an amazing introduction, paul. If i had two other introductions before i i in it for the job t penn, and yours and one other that i think, i just want a copy of it so i can remind myself in be reminded of the generosity of others. You are such a special person to me, paul, as you know. In this process of writing this book and your work with monument lab and also your research and i guess our joint and mutual interest in afterlife is also part of this so thank you so much for the introduction. Im just going to read an excerpt from the book and then errin and i will be in conversation with each other. Im really excited to see what comes from our conversation at this really significant moment in time, as paul pointed out. Im going to read from you the end of the first chapter and well see what happens if this is my first time doing this reading so its a little experiment. By the end of the color purple, dear god, dear stars, there are trees, there are people. There are everything. Coming full circle with her journey to self and community. Like her own rebirth, the color purple continues to reemerge with each iteration serving as a new and chopper reflection of the time in which it appears enabling the novelty of a literary timelessness and political timeliness that few americans have ever achieved. The rise and fall of the novels of the original full politics parallels black Women Political journeys to the center of American Life with each subsequent version for better or for worse being inspired. In search of the color purple is my retelling of that journey. This is this is a book not how alice walker firstterm masterpiece but also about how her singular story shaped and continues to shape generations of readers who found solace in sisterhood the path that walker gives us in the color purple from the original trauma to her sexual awakening which shows her for eventual forgiveness of our, her connection with her such, children, god is not merely character growth but a model for our feelings and transformation from a tough subject to impart citizens. In my research, my interviews and pilgrimages i come across people, lack like in whited women, young and old, and straight, from all found themselves journey to self. They like me still hold onto the moment of revelation. And they see the color purple to which we should all turn in our weary and disturbing times. As the me too movement has taken hold, billions of survivors of Sexual Violence have come forward with their own stories of Sexual Assault. Despite the fact this is a term me too was coined by a black woman, my dear friend to run a a book come to africanamerican girls like the 13yearold in alabama who told her in 1997 about being sexually abused by her mothers boyfriend. Black girls and women victims candidate find themselves at risk for being ignored or rendered invisible. Or as after the release of the movie in that event of the black people for perpetuating racist or types come about black male sexuality or for colluding with an unfair criminal Justice System if they claimed to have been sexually assaulted by an africanamerican man. As a result vulnerability of black girls and women and ongoing backlash they receive as in the cases of those allegedly assaulted by bill cosby, or r. Kelly or privately, as in the cases of hundreds of black girls and young women with whom isis and ive worked with inner feminist organization a long walk home, we as a society remain this interest in the face of millions in order to protect the chosen few. No other writer has been able to imagine the whole arctic, the breaking of the silence, the come to terms without sexual trauma has impacted individual survivors, their children and their community, and the means by which assailants can seek real accountability for the actions, make amends and ultimately be forgiven and alice walker. Her perspective the unique its also shaped by her particular Vantage Point as a black woman. Naturally i read about the things i know best from the angles i know best. Alice walker said in an interview while on the set of the color purple in 1985. Black women have different angle from which to write. They see things from a different point of view. Black women have to look out to all those people, black men, the white women, white man. She concluded. This creates a different way of looking at reality. Through her purple hued Looking Glass walker imagines a world of being in a novel that remains potent, and the prophetic and reminded of how far we as a nation still have to go. While being an extraordinary vision what else is it say about the color purple, walker asked it at the end of our first interview. Without skipping a beat i replied, everything. Thank you. That is a perfect way for us to get into this. Im so excited and i will get anybody to meet in no, we did not plan to both wear purple tonight but its a good sign and it makes me feel like were both on the same page, that we both did wear purple and you look fabulous in it and just congratulations again, salamishah. I will tell all of you in case you did not notice from paul, there if you submit also accurate introduction. Salamishah collects people and im just feeling very grateful that i am one of the people that is in that number and so being asked to facilitate this conversation is one of the highlights of a good start for 2021 for me, particularly because even before meeting salamishah, knowing her writing and a work as something that really seeks to bear witness and give voice and empower folks, to have this book and to really get insight into the story that helped to make you who you are and help inform the work that you do, it usually has been a revelation for me. Its a different way to get to know you. Im very excited about that, and to pauls point because were in a moment where we are kind to celebrate the triumph of the spirit of the black woman right now, this is absolutely your celebration as well as alice walkers celebration as well as the black women who stood up for democracy at this moment. Just so many things, and so can i i Say Something befoe you begin . One of the people you dont know this but watching you and reading your throughout this time its been quite an inspiration and a source of healing. I say that with the utmost respect you just because you have been so consistent in your rigorous analysis and your centering of black women as political figures, as cultural icons, and just watching you on and television more recently has just been, im a big fan of your writing constantly but its nice to have your voice come for us to do so thank you for all you have done to get so many of us past 2020 which was quite difficult and i guess were now into that we are entering into 2021. I think we were in 2021 now. I dont know, what is time . Thank you for saying that. Again, your generosity is a gift for people who have the pleasure and at which to know you, like it really is. Im really glad we are in one of my Favorite Places even though we are virtual, the free library is a place i love a lot, really talking about what i i agree s one of the most important Literary Works of the last century. If not putting out even a greater platform. This is a book that youve lived with for most of your life. I wonder why was now the time to tell the story . Had it just been shaping you and this was a moment where you could not tell it . How did we get, how did we finally get to this work that was living in you and for you for so long . Theres two stories. One is more prophetic and other one is practical. The prophetic one was, a long time ago i guess, not too long ago, maybe ten years ago i was one to write a book about Gloria Steinem and alice walker and my head as these two women, one for the south and one from the midwest and they find a way to feminism and there are very different stories of the feminist movement if you tell it through their experiences. That was something i had thought about in my background partly because you come to glorias house, theres this poem and a talk about in the book that alice gave her i think for her 50th birthday. Im not sure. It was called she turkey walk in and see this almost like an entryway, her being on the cover of Time Magazine and a letter from her family does owning her, the ad that black women took out in support of anita hill and vignette is poem from alice walker. Me it was like that was always in the back of my head. Like i would like to tell a story of feminism today maybe think about these two figures. And then practically the Publishing Company that i published the book with, my editor was starting a new series called books on books. Jamison presented to my agent tonya mckinnon, a whole bunch of books of course, chronicle work, and tonya thought immediately of me with the color purple. When she presented to me it was like yes, of course. I kind of know that book. We can talk about what i i dit know but at the time i felt very confident that i could write about the color purple because if it meant so much to me. I talk about in the book the summer before my senior year in high school i read three works of art, three really important books. If theres anything you need to know about me you can just put these three books together and youll know anything. Toni Morrison Alex avs autobiography of malcolm x, and alice walkers the color purple. My senior year, so read that n the summer and my senior year of high school in the fall is went anita hill testified before the senate, allegations of Clarence Thomas is Sexual Harassment and in the spring of my senior year, the l. A. Rebellion in response to the lapd officers being found not guilty for beating rodney king. I had these three books 70 up to have a political analysis as black people we have that analysis. We live in this world of black women we live in this world that we know something wrong and systemic and interest to we are. But you have these works of art or these works of writing really helped me see myself in a different way. Theres something so special about the storytelling techniques that allison uses in the color purple that was so new to me and knew to all of us. Alice walker being able to write an entire novel in the voice of a southern black girl in the 1920s is a remarkable feat of literary achievement. Pics i think that was also part of what appealed to me. I knew the book. I taught it so many times. Weve all seen the movie, and i have had seen the musical. So as part of my own comingofage so to speak and so i thought maybe i i could pult off the little. And pulled it off you did. They say are just make room for us, so what a fortunate and fortuitous way that this story came into your life and you were certainly ready to tell it. Just giving those cultural customs, lets people know that you and i are of a similar generation. I say that to say i was definitely in high school when i read the book but i saw the movie before i read the book. I wonder if that was your experience . So they were out of order for me. I saw the movie before i was supposed to see at. As a young person without any kind of cultural baggage, right, that you talk about in this book, the backlash to the story. I am able to consume it as a young person, and even someone who is like a young adult watching and rewatching because thats that was in black households seeing the colored people, you have probably seen it more than once. You at least have the book in your home when he picked it up or not. It was the thing that existed as a staple of black life, of people of a certain age. I was struck by how much i didnt know about that history which of course it explains so much about what people, why people were saying some of things they were saying. But having you know, when i was young. I wonder when your awareness of that piece of the story came into view for you and how you see that as having evolved over the course of this story, and especially not just moving from book to movie but from movie to musical and kind of present day . So i went to college at the university of pennsylvania in 92. I took a class in 93 of the black film and theater class and so we watched the color purple and that was the first time that i was in real time part of debates of whether the movie was racist. Like thats the biggest critique of the movie is that it has like portraying the violence against for those of you have written the book or seen the movie, shes a victim of Sexual Assault at an early age. Shes raped by some she thinks is her father. She comes up i doubt that is just the stepfather. Shes impregnated twice. Her mother is dying. Her children are taken from d she gets married to albert. Hes physically abusive as well. Hes played by danny glover quite famously itself. Those with the debates. The question of whether you can tell the story of what the violence against black women that was both interracial with the character of sophia gets brutally beaten by the white townsmen and the sheriff, or interracial the ways in which black men may connect forms of violence against children or their partners. So those are the debates were having. Is this a racist film . When you go back into the record, people compared her story to birth of a nation. What . Yet. Whats interesting is like the way you talk about it, its not quite like martin and barack and jesus. Its not quite like the trinity that is on the wall but if theres a movie or text that black people have this familiar relationship to come its really the color purple is really one of those and we can do the handclaps and all that. [inaudible] word for word they could recite that movie. Yes, that is deathly part of your reenactment. [inaudible] so how do you hold those truths . How is it possible this is probably houses by the most hated black woman in america the time of the movie comes up. Alice walker has to cross the picket line to go see her own film, and why thats important is because alice walker is a sncc activists are choosing activist who fought valiantly in mississippi and georgia for the rights of black people. Shes a protester in her spirit and she continues to have a long life of protesting as we know. So for her to have to cross the picket line with black people boycotting her movie to see her film was quite, it seems kind of unreal. Partly what i wanted to do was show us some of the things we take for granted in this political moment were fought for by black women. This is the work you continuously do. But that black women in the 70s, in the 1980 were really creating communities, collect is any kind of cultural imaginary in which we could see what freedom looks like the black people. A couple of years ago i i wasa panel with loretta ross and she compared the moment we are in to the 1980s and she said in the 80s we thought we made it. Think about him despite the backlash, alice gets the pulitzer. She gets a film, hollywood film based on her, and black women are in many ways, Oprah Winfrey gets a television show. Thats a month in which the was a lot of political possibility for black women. She said she didnt know that that wouldnt would re. For this moment that we are in now she was also say they changed the ways in which the possibilities are merged and the ways the entrenchment tries to continue. Because we like talking about Kamala Harris is a first black woman Vice President , the first black vice Vice President ,t south asian, all these things. But you know, look at the 80s, that creates the blueprint for today but there are also lessons to be learned from the way in which people try to contain that as well. And look out fragile it is. That there can be that progress but also that backlash. You bring up Something Else i want to ask about because been wondering by the time they get to the end of the book im really wondering who you, or which do you think in terms of being more is understood, alice walker or the story of the color purple . This is a brilliant question. Oh, my goodness. I i would say alice may be becae the color purple would you think about its journey. I mean, now its the musical and it will be turned into a movie so its reached the level of cultural acceptance that was impossible to imagine in 1985 people were boycotting the movie, but it israel today. I think alice walker i think is still quite a complicated figure and also because shes a black woman from the south who is a genius. Every time i pick up a newspaper, their son, what do we think of orwell today . What we think of fitzgerald today . Yet i still think theres a way in which also the writer is still not recognized the way in which she should be and one of these whitmanesque figures in American Life absolutely, obviously weve written a whole book about this but youve always thought it was sort of a classic and i certainly believe the color purple is a classic and yet i believe if you asked some of our partners, the great gatsby, of course, read the color purple . Number as an adult person but of course we read to kill a mockingbird and we read you know, the autobiography of malcolm x. Those things existed in our homes the way i dont think they coexisted in a lot of other american houses. So i also believe that the book is a mirror and one of the things that we love about what you wrote here is it engaged me in a lot of different entry points that i hadnt considered. Just the idea that the story of Domestic Work being on full display, with sophias narrative. I had really thought about that and i thought about Domestic Workers a lot this year in my writing and talking to them as voters, talking to them as bluecollar workers which we dont often describe it as, women of color as being bluecollar workers but i thought so much. Im from atlanta, with a southern accent, lets get that out. Thats another reason why i thought youd have read it so good. Im from atlanta but yes, thinking so much this year about the rise of black women but also the increased visibility and value that we finally put on black women. And that was a group that alice walker clearly valued and wanted to really center their humanity in a way that i dont think, we still dont do that as a society. It took stacy abrams or Latasha Brown to see the humanity and value in black rural folks as voters whose value was just as much as the black voter in atlanta but for some reason its like, even not wanting, prioritizing netties language overseas, that conversation you talkabout is if her conversation was not valuable and as if she was not sophisticated early in her thoughts. I wonder what you make of that, just how we continue to think about black rural women as yet another dimension of this story and the storytelling that alice walker brings to life and took to the spotlight. Thats a beautiful question and i guess the emphasis for writing the novel was for her to have a book that echoed the voice of hermother. So thats i guess when i was saying earlier. As we now know Zora Neale Hurston was able to partly tell on novel, or write a novel with that kind of speech pattern taking over the book but it doesnt do it entirely so alice from beginning to end wants us to hear the beauty of her language, the brilliance of the way in which her family spoke. And so i think thats part of the brilliance of the novel, the genius of the novel but also as i write in the book was also caused for pushback. So athens had excerpted earlier works of alices and then so she assumed the things that they were going to say. Of course world will publish the color purple but instead a rotor and they said black people dont talk like thats on the level of speech and language, alice really wanted to value the ways in which black people in the south, black people in georgia and black girls spoke to each other but then yes, i think youre right to point out how her insistence on valuing the lives, experiences and expertise of these characters who were in fact based on family members i think is also something that we should not forget when we think about the novel. But also the idea that i opened up with as you talk about, the unique Vantage Point of black women and you think about unique Vantage Point that black women in the south provides. To american democracy and i think this is what the book is doing. I think thats what obviously stacy and latasha were able to imagine and dream and no as truth and despite the fact that everyone around them may have forgotten the White Supremacy doesnt forget the black rural voter matters. You know what i mean . Theres a lot of interesting conundrums. You wanted to speak wholeheartedly and see just to reference the confrontation with sophia and miss millie and the mayor. The black woman and the need to suppress that threat with violence is there. Alice. I want to remind those of you in the audience thank you for those who have already submitted questions that you can use the q a icon at the bottom of your screen to begin asking a question and also to point out that books can be purchased through uncle bobbys bookstore here in philadelphia and certainly support local bookstores especially in the time of the pandemic. We just want to mention that. So in the book you cover the central black woman characters of the story. But you dont say that you have a favorite. And i wonder if that is something that i think i might know who it is but im going to ask anyway. If it changes, if it has changed for you and you have returned to the book repeatedly or if it changed from thebook to the movie or the musical. Who do you think it is, im just curious. I think it might be should. I dont know,ive never thought of it. I looked at the reason and that i break up the book in three parts, seeley show again sophia and they kind of or the book, the movie, the musical that these are the characters that i returned to at different points in my life so celie is the one identified most with as a teenager, should is the one i identify with as maturing myself and continuing to heal and celie is the character i identified with most recently. It does depend on the settings so i think for me its hard not to love all those iconic performances in the movie. Like, thats the figure that we had not really seen before but we havent seen margaret averys show either. I think , how can you not love celie . Celie is a performance on stage but also the life of celie in the book and im rereading the ending again today and i was so, she sets in as producer of the musical talked about celies infinite ability to forgive. And she feels christlike in that way. Shes almost messianic without all the that that comes with it. And i know alice talks about of the biggest mysteries of her book is that people never Pay Attention to celies relationship to god so to think that celie as a figure whose quite christlike without being fully messianic i suppose is really interesting but i love celie. Sounds like a clichc but one of the things i found most interesting is when i interviewed alice and she talked about celie being based on her grandmother rachel and she kept on insisting she was a beautiful woman but no one believed that. No one believed that celie is as beautiful as nettie and shes like its the belief caused version of celie and my own biases, i dont think i was doing that and i discovered in the archives a picture of alices mother. Her two grandmothers. In the book and it was so like, who is this woman . She kept on telling me at her house that she looked like Josephine Baker so its so crazy. Part of that might also have been because if you were like me and you saw the movie before you saw the book , you see them trying to i guess im beautiful i will be goldberg so that is the image in your mind, kind of their reinforcing that idea. You already go into the book as a teenager with that in your mind. I started to guess celie but i didnt because i felt it was easy but like, her power is just so consistent through the book, the movie and the musical. Because yes, i feel like the other characters are interpreted differently. Shug is the one i would like to be the most like. Celie is the one i would probably like the most. I think thats a great question though but i wouldnt have written this book if i didnt care about celie so much. You brought up celies forgiveness and reading this book at the time that im reading your book, we are in a National Moment when we are talking aboutforgiveness and healing and unity. And the thing about this story, yes, celie. The movie ends with a forgiveness and reconciliation but notwithout a reckoning. You can call it the dinner theme or whatever but there was an acknowledgment of injury done before we get to forgiveness. And i would hope that people dont miss that in her story. And even the harpo sophia relationship. And yet mayor, miss millie and sophia, they want her to jump to forgiveness without acknowledgment. So the idea of black folks having to be forgiving but in the absence of that acknowledgment or accountability. That i think resonates in the , the color purple story but its something thats also with us now. Its not just about celie, the mother meme which occurs. I think shes like, so its not just in addition, she holds them accountable but theres acollective accountability. So that shug holds however accountable. He has a choice he has to make, either he will continue to do harm or he will make amends and thats the crux that he finds himself at after celie leaves so when she leaves she has a full life of a very very full life , and in which she comes an entrepreneur and then she and shug are onagain offagain and then she owns her own house and about a black woman in the south and again, the nice scenic were talking about in the 40s owning land. Theres all this wrote that celie is able to have in the book but walker is one of the most compassionate writers and in fact that she gives all, whether its the first novel, meridian which is her second novel and the color purple, she deeply committed to character suffering being released of that suffering through a journey of internal and external transformation. So misty works hard at learning this part of this community. At the end of the novel, and we really see it again in the musical, the movie itself i think made it shortchanges in a return to the community but in the musical. He gets to be part of it. Exactly and this is the controversy that alice has but despite that she also writes a letter to danny glover saying i do think i should forgive my grandfather for your performance i was able to understand a man who she was harmed by his own family and by segregation so but the musical i think, even in the book and in the musical heat supposes proposes to celie. I dont know. Its really clear shes not interested in albert at all but the fact that theyve gotten to that level of intimacy and friendship and that he had earned his way back and thats all part of his capacity to forgive and harpo and sophia are in their way back to each other. And even with the mayors thoughtful comments he made, they are racist and so theres no, but the mayors daughter that she raises, that sophia raises shes unable to take her own children because she works for them for such a long time as part of her prison sentence. Theres some sense of not reconciliation but theres a way in which the cycle of racism can beinterrupted. There as well so. Before we open it up to the audience, the last thingi will ask you. Here we are a generation or more than a generation now after this story first entered the world. I wonder if you think that we are still in search of the color purple and if you do, what is it that we still have to learn about this story, what does it still have to do . One, we were talking about the atonement cannot come, cannot be had without accountability and so albert still an elusive character id say at the end of the novel. We may see celie and shug and sophia more incorporated but alberts journey and the way in which he tries to atone for his harm is so rare and unusual and exceptional thats one thing we as a people and also the nation to learn from that, thats what i think this thing that we continue to Pay Attention to is our life illuminating, the wake with black womens voices and black girls dreams are still not fully incorporated into the way in which america sees itself. And so i think what genius we have and what gifts we continue to give this nation and to say democracy, thats what were talking about with georgia area thats not simply people recognizing black voters, we see black women organizing the nation. To choose between democracy or something far far worse. So i guess at this point i dont really know why we have to make the argument that we should be validated in a way that i still think we do have to continue tofight that fight. Absolutely. Well, i we could keep going but we have questions from the audience and i want to get to a couple of those. Okay, so Michelle Frank is asking doctor taylor referred to alices movie several times. However the movie was Stephen Spielberg based on walkers novel can she talk about how she addresses that distinction in her text because in some ways, the name for this burden of spielbergs replanning of the several important moments of her novel, this is such a great question and you do get into this in the book. Thank you michelle. Well i guess it was this spielberg movie in terms of hes the director and quincy jones is the producer. And then the early stages, they asked alice walker to write the script so she writes a script called watch the sunset for the color purple, it has two titles and which shug is given even more room in the screen version that alice had hoped would appear. So once spielberg decides not to go with alices version and hired another writer alice is still part of the process so she makes certain demands about the equity and Racial Equity and racial makeup of the crew. So it has to be more than 50 percent of the people of color. Which is before our moment of equity. And alsoon set every day with the , so while on the one hand it wasnt her movie and she does pay a huge cost for a mistake or the way in which the story feared from her novel, she was part of the process. Thats something i didnt realize until i did this book, how intimate the process was making the movie and how much of the family was. They were talking about being on set and having grown up in a household in which my mother was emotionally and mentally abusive and where sheexperienced Sexual Assault , she talks about seeing onset what love is. She learned through the relationships between alice and quincy and stevens working with her mother she was able to understand for the first time this is what love is and it changes her life so i think alice was the one who paid the consequences for the backlash as opposed to quincy jones and Steven Spielberg but they all were affected by that and alice was also highly collaborative in the process of making the movie even though she would have made different choices. Theres a good book called the same river twice that she wrote in 1996 and it talks about the movie and she includes letters to spielberg , her own script, her diary entries. So if you want to know what she thought about the movie you can also read that alongside my book. Thats a good pointbecause when you mention the same river twice in your book i said maybe ill read that one next. She had an entirely different screenplay that ended up not being the alternate version that Steven Spielberg used but we have another great question from miriam. How you think we can use this book in the literature in general to continue to educate racists to change their views. There were so many people at the racial reckoning that were looking for a place to learn more about how they could do more, how they could show up really for, to address real Racial Equity and Racial Injustice and to really learn more about this countrys history, the truth about this countrys history which is something i think about living in philadelphia which people regarded as the crucible of democracy, the whole of the constitution, the Founding Fathers but i was thinking about that coming into this conversation tonight the color purple should absolutely be among the books that we recommend to people who are trying to get a better understanding the racial dynamics in this country but i wonder if you agree with that. I definitely do but i also think its important because it shows how people relate to each other. It does show how black people relate to white people but i also as a child of the 1970s and we are beneficiaries of the black power movement, the way in which black people see themselves and relate to themselves and understand the language of culture on their own terms i think is also deeply important. And also, this requires different conversations, the conversations black people have with white people and with each other and those conversations are so rich, so thoughtful and its so far ahead from the conversations sometimes we have with white people that if you really want to end racism we need to catch up to these conversations that black people have with eachother about racism and racial progress and gender equity and sexuality and things like that. It definitely is a world of the country into itself. Thats so true but you bring up a point i thought about even when i was younger just seeing these black people literally in their own universe, and you dont even really aware of what folks until sophia has her altercation in the movie and all right, they are here to. They do bump up against each other, these two communities but it was definitely two different world living even in the same town. April asks and says thanks so much for this, thank you april fortuning in. Can you talk more specifically about the difference between dialect in their eyes are wanting god versus alicewalkers the color purple . This is a good english class. I know youre feeling it. I was just saying alice as a very important essay she wrote in the mid70s called looking for zora and i write my introduction looking for alice based on that where she was in search of Zora Neale Hurstons voice and she cant find it and alice talks about what it means to have lots of women and for those who dont know Zora Neal Hurston died penniless and for alice it was so devastating to know that she died as a domestic who didnt have anyone to acknowledge her life or her death so alice buys a tombstone and then becomes, edits and anthology of her work and in terms of the book their eyes are wanting god, my professor lewis gage junior, he wrote and talked brilliantly about an indirect discourse which is basically when the narrator goes to firstperson narrator to a firstperson narrator and he argues that in their eyes are wanting god you can see in the middle of the novel it goes from a third person omniscient narrator to jamies voice taking over the consciousness of the noveland it goes back to the third person. So the dialect both in their eyes are watching god is rich and lively when the characters are doing the dozen or when jamie is telling tales but it takes over for a brief period the novel structure so what alice walker does that he argues in signifying monkey is really starts the novel at that moment that person gives us in the middle where its full consciousness of the entire book to africanamerican, southern english so that the biggest difference but i think as an anthropologist understood the diaper city and the complexity of black southern speech so alice is so happy to read her stories to her family members. To test to see if it was accurate but also as an allmy as well. Thats really interesting. I was going to ask you the last question which is this book, you talk about how much the book has given youover the course of your life. I wonder what this journey that youve been on to tell the story of thisbook , what that gave you and particular, just developing this relationship alice walker as im sure teenage you could never have imagined reading this book would have carried you all the way to that place so talk about that. I started writing at the same time as i started this book. The teenage me before i was sexually assaulted was trapped in high school and i really ought realized in that moment that sometimes you dont know how far youve come until youre feeling and until something comes up and youre like wow, i can run at night by myself and feel safe. So that was a mark of healing in terms of my own body, in terms of my own relationship to a public space so this book was very simple similar to me because i had to go back and chart who i had been and escapism in my trauma and in my feeling so to be able to write this book at this moment and for it to resonate with people who are also survivors was so meaningful to me because i think thats part of my lifes work but also its a way of facing the fullness that once coming into oneself and thats what celies journey is and thats what this book was for alice and this book was a mark of that for me as well. I want to thank you for giving all of us reason to revisit this story. In my life it has given me a completely new perspective on the book, the movie and the musical and i urge everybody to get it. Ive got my copy, iveread it. Im so happy ive been talking about nonstop in our conversations i want to thank everybody for coming here. May the color purple continue to be a light to our path and a source of healing and bald and i just really thank you so much for reviewing this for all of us. Just as alice gave something to the world, you now give us this so thank you so much everybody. Please take care, stay safe out there and have a great day everyone. You are wanting book tv on cspan2 with the latest nonfiction books and authors. Tv on cspan2, created by americas Cable Television companies to buy these Television Companies who provide tv to viewers asa public service. Hello everyone. We are here today because Colin Andrews has written, Helen Andrews has written the book of the year in my opinion, boomers. The men and women who promised freedom anddelivered disaster. Ive known helen for about 15 years now. Helen is Senior Editor at the american conservative or editor