Evelyn C. White on writing
the life of Alice Walker

“I wasn’t going to put myself in the position of having to ask my White male bosses If I could have time off to follow Alice around. My ancestors didn’t pick cotton all day under a blazing sun so I could work on a plantation!”

by Sidney Brinkley

Somewhat overshadowed by the all the hoopla of the waning days of the 2004 presidential election the first ever biography of Pulitzer Prize winning author Alice Walker was published. Titled “Alice Walker: a life” it was written by journalist Evelyn C. White. She appeared at Modern Times Bookstore in San Francisco. It was the last stop of a four-city tour that began in Chicago, went to New York City, then Atlanta, Georgia. After reading a few paragraphs from the book she talked at length, and with candor, about the actual writing of the book that took ten years to complete.

She signed with the publisher Norton in 1995 and told them she would deliver the finished manuscript in four years – something she says everyone but her knew was unrealistic.

“No one - not my agent, not my publisher - believed it would take four years but as we got closer to the deadline my journalistic training took over. I’m used to meeting deadlines. So, on June 1st, 1999, I delivered a manuscript to my agent. It was 48 pages long. Nobody said a word. The publisher never pressured me and the book kept going.”

She likened it to the energizer bunny because it kept going for six more years becoming what she called “a surreal experience.”
“You know how in the movies, you see a calendar rapidly turning to mark the time? It was like that. Years just go by.”

But she did finish the manuscript this year and the book tour was scheduled for late summer. But the tour began on an anxious note because the books weren't ready.

“Norton was sending me out on a book tour but I was told, surprise, the books may not be there for the first stop in Chicago. This was my first book tour; I’m already nervous and they tell me that.”

She went to Chicago without a book. It wasn’t until a few hours before the scheduled signing that she got a call from the front desk of the hotel saying a package had arrived.

“The first time I saw the book was in the packing room at the Hyatt Hotel in Chicago,” she said. “I’ll never forget that it was a brother who handed it to me. He’ll never know the important part he played in my life.”

The Chicago and New York signings went smoothly but Atlanta would be the most important stop of the tour. It was there she would come face-to-face with her subject, Alice Walker. Ms. Walker was in the city to see the musical version of her novel “The Color Purple.” The Broadway bound production was having its premier at the National Black Arts Festival. (White praised the show which features music by Brenda Russell, among others.)

“During intermission the book store set up a book display in the lobby of the theatre and Alice had seen it. ‘I want a copy of the book tonight!’ she told me. So, I get a copy and at the end of the show I’m looking around for Alice. Finally, they tell me she’s backstage and I see her sitting in a chair surrounded by celebrities. I’m holding the book in the palms of my hands [White reenacts the scene, holding out her palms as if making an offering.] and I passed the book from my hand to her’s. ‘This ain’t no chicken,’ she said, weighing the book in her hands. ‘This is a big book.’ I told her she had a big life.”

This began in Atlanta a decade ago, at Spelman College, when White first approached Walker about writing the biography. Not only did she agree, she provided access to her family and inner circle of friends. “I had complete access to everybody, Oprah, Quincy Jones, her family.” But more important she had full-access to Alice Walker. She would be allowed to accompany her on private trips and public speaking engagements. However, there was one problem. When Walker dropped this golden opportunity into her lap, Evelyn C. White was still working for the San Francisco Chronicle and she had to make a decision.

“I wasn’t going to put myself in the position of having to ask my White male bosses If I could have time off to follow Alice around,” she said. 'And have them say ‘No!', singer Rhodessa Jones shouted from the audience.“That’s right and have them say ‘No,’ ” White continued, now fired-up. “My ancestors didn’t pick cotton all day under a blazing sun so I could work on a plantation!”

She quit the Chronicle to work on the book but money-wise things did not go as well as she'd imagined.

“I got what I thought was a decent advance from the publisher but after taxes and other fees I ended up living on $14,000.00. There were times I would walk around Lake Meritt [in Oakland, CA] with my head in my hands wondering if I was going to be able to make the rent.”

She had to give up going to movies, drinking lattes and did all of her shopping at the grocery outlet. But during those lean years she said she never had any regrets about giving up a regular paycheck in order to write. “They [employers] lock you into thinking that you won’t survive without them.”

But as year seven, eight, then nine passed by and - she was still working on the book, she realized it had to stop and looked for a suitable ending.

“There’s a saying, ‘Well begun is halfway done.’ I really believe that but endings are important too and the ending came in 2002.”

She recounted an incident that happens early in the book, how the young Alice Walker lost her eye in an accident.

“Her father ran to the road and flagged down a passing car but the White man who was driving refused to take Alice to the hospital. He didn’t want a Black child in his car.”

Fast forward to 2002 shortly after the attack on the World Trade Center, Alice Walker was invited to New York to give a speech.

“She didn’t want to do it,” White said. “She told them she didn’t feel like dealing with all the security and waiting around in crowded airports. ‘I’ll send a jet for you,’ she was told, and they did. It wasn’t the first time she had flown in a private jet. When they were filming The Color Purple the studio sent one for her. But now it had come full-circle. A White man had refused to pick her up in his car as a child and now another White man was sending his jet for her.”

She had found her ending and there was just one thing left to do.

“I had a closing ritual with Alice,” she said. “I wanted it to end for me, as well as for her. Then it was done.”

Her assessment of the finished work is simply, “It is what it is.”
Afterwards, she signed books. In addition to her signature, she stamped each book: Read Gwendolyn Brooks.

When I got to spend a couple of minutes off to the side with her, I asked if she had discovered anything new about Alice Walker. She pondered the question for a moment then said, “No, nothing new, just a deeper understanding of Alice.”

It’s clear Evelyn C. White is close to Alice Walker and admires her a great deal. However, throughout the evening I wondered if a biographer could be “too” close to their subject. Biographies run the gamut. Some are considered “honest” portraits while others simply show their subject in the best light. But as a journalist she was trained to put a certain distance between herself and whatever she was writing about.

I asked if her friendship and admiration for Alice Walker ever got in the way of her looking at her objectively. Her back stiffened almost imperceptibly and a brief flash of anger lit her eyes as she fixed a level gaze on me.

“That’s for you to decide,” she coolly replied.