Alice Walker on activism

Anything We Love Can Be Saved is dedicated to, among others, Mumia AbuJamal, the Philadelphia Black journalist currently on death row. University of Pittsburgh doctoral student, Cornell Womack, 30, helped to organize a reading that Walker, an ardent supporter of MuTrija, gave to boost his legal defense.

"We passed the hat and because of Alice's participation, we raised more than $6,000," Womack says. "It was the single largest one-night contribution in the history of the Mumia movement."

But more important, Womack explains, is the activist model Walker offers for students searching to find real meaning during their college years.

"Alice has left an important legacy for young people in that she remains a simple, unpretentious woman who's interested in adding her wisdom and commitment to the movement, not in being a star," Womack says. "Her alchemy is such that everybody involved with the Mumia event felt that we'd made a friend. After it was over, Alice came to my house and we all ate and partied. She danced so hard that by the end of the evening she was soaked with sweat."

Walker says it's the good times that follow the hard times, as surely as day follows night, that keep her in the struggle for justice.

"Activism centers you, empowers you and basically makes you feel completely in the stream of life," she says joyfully. "For me, it's not drudgery, but rather about being bonded. Part of my message is that I enjoy activism and other people can, too. As an activist, you can have a really good time."

San Francisco Bay area writer Evelyn C. White is editor of The Black Women's Health Book (Seal Press).

Copyright Black Collegian Oct 1997
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