Alice Walker was an American author, novelist, short story writer, poet, and political activist. She was born in Eatonton, Georgia on February 9, 1944, the youngest child of eight. His parents, a sharecropper and maid, had little money. At the age of eight, his right eye was scarred and caused partial blindness because his parents were unable to take him to the doctor for a week. Blindness led to her being teased and bullied by classmates; she withdrew herself and began to write to escape the daily ridicule. At fourteen, the scar tissue was removed, but she continued to feel excluded, regardless of her accomplishments. She became valedictorian of her high school and later attended Spelman College on a full scholarship. She then transferred to Sarah Lawrence College and graduated in 1965. At Spelman, she became involved in the civil rights movement. Walker continued the movement, registering black voters in rural areas of Georgia and Mississippi. After graduating from Sarah Lawrence, she married Melvyn Leventhal in 1967, a white Jewish civil rights lawyer. The couple's daughter was born in 1969. They moved to Jackson, Mississippi, becoming the state's first legally married interracial couple. Together they faced racism and numerous threats from the Ku Klux Klan and other whites. She completed her first novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland, in 1969 and it was published in 1970. When her marriage ended in 1977, Alice and her daughter moved to Northern California. She still resides in Northern California and continues to write today. Walker often uses the theme of preserving African American culture. An example of his theme of preserving culture is strongly illustrated in the short story “E...... middle of paper ......Alice. “Daily use.” The History and Structure of Perrine, 13th ed. Helene Triller. Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012, 2009, 2006. 108-115. Print. (http://theliterarylink.com/flowers.html), original source: Walker, Alice. “The flowers”. Reading and writing about short fiction.Ed. Edward Proffitt. NY: Harcourt, 1988. 404-405. Walker's The Flowers. Full text available by: Loeb, Monica. Explainer, Autumn96, Vol. 55 Number 1, p60, 3pSubjects: SHORT STORY (Literary form); CRITICAL; FLOWERS, The (New); WALKER, Alice, 1944-Database: full academic searchNational Humanities Center, 2007: nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/. In Alice Walker, In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women (1967); reprint (paper) Harvest Books (Harcourt), 2003, pp. 3-9. Authorization pending from Harcourt Inc. (http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-998)