The collection of essays deals with themes as varied as as nuclear weapons, anti-Semitism, and the Civil Rights Movement. The essays give the readers a vivid picture of Alice walker and her concepts of life and how they had been formed through her contact with men and women who had touched her life. In the essays she sings about the unsung heroines whom she had come across in her day to day life. The book is in three parts The first part consists of 9 essays. In part II which consists of 10 essays Alice Walker focuses on the Civil Rights Movement and the important leaders who made contributions to it. Through these essays, she also exemplifies how important the Civil Rights Movements' aims were for African Americans. In many of these essays Walker describes her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement and explores the positives and negatives of the Civil Rights Movement's purpose. At the time of Civil Rights, Walker comprehends that she needs to make a change. She commences to take action by visiting several homes and handing out registration ballots so the privileged and underprivileged could vote. She shows that whites would see the Civil Rights Movement as being dead because they did not have to go through the struggles and sacrifices that African-Americans had to encounter. They did not have to show interest because this movement was intended to help African-Americans to be equal and get the same rights as white people. White people already had the rights that the law granted and African Americans were still fighting for it. Besides that she points out that other ethnicities were unable to understand the significance behind the Civil Rights Movement and its importance for African Americans. To her the Civil Rights Movement gave “history and men far greater than presidents. It gave us heroes. Selfless men of courage and strength, for our little boys and girls to follow. It gave us hope for tomorrow. It called us to life. Because we live, it can never die". Walker’s perspectives on racism and the effects of the Civil Rights Movement within the African American community were built upon Dr.Luther King Jr.’s experience as an African American. Her mother too influenced her deeply. She and her siblings were taught to embrace their culture but at the same time to move North to escape from the harsh realities of the South. This is explicit in one of her short stories Everyday Use
In the The Almost Year, Alice Walker takes up author Florence Randall’s hope of blacks and whites accepting one another. She clarifies that "she seeks to find a way in which the abused and poor black and the privileged and white rich can meet at some point. Walker's perspective is that if both the blacks and the whites can transcend their racial inequality they will not be divided. In this house, a black girl feels somewhat threatened being in an all white household. Due to these circumstances, Walker provides a sense of division between the black girl and the family that is providing a home for her to feel free. The black girl cannot embrace the warmth from the Mallory's family because she feels that all white people are out to hurt the black people. Walker explains how the Civil Rights Movement intended to bring both the blacks and the whites together. Walker wants to show how a black girl should not t feel unequal when they are around white people.
. In Coretta King: Revisited, Alice Walker tell us how people like describes Coretta Scott King take conscientious effort to fight for equality and civil liberties for African Americans. Walker sees strength in Coretta Scott King, a woman who just lost her husband due to the acts of violence from others. Walker finds it difficult to understand how a woman who just lost a loved one to the brutality, could continue in the battle for Civil Rights. Walker praises the fact that Coretta Scott King did not just sit back but took actions to help with different campaigns. Walker converses with Coretta Scott King on about "black people in power and the whites who work with them" and Ms. King says, "I don't believe that black people are going to misuse power in the way it has been misused. I think they've learned from their experiences. And we've seen instances where black and white work together effectively".
Part three addresses black women coping with self-worth and self-respect. It offers encouragement to future generations of Black men and women. Walker begins part III with a poem by Marilou Awiakta, "Motheroot." In this section of the collection Walker is on a mental journey seeking ways to uplift the Black race. Along this exploration she uses literature of other Black poets and writers to gain a deeper insight on Black women in their era, which assisted Walker in understanding society in her era. In the opening of In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens, Walker quotes from Jean Toomer's Cane, taking note that in early literature by black men, black women were represented as mere sex objects.
They did not have the opportunity to pursue their dreams as they had the responsibility of raising children, obeying their husbands, and maintaining the household. She baked, cooked and did innumerable household chores and often her body broken and forced to bear children while her soul cried out to paint watercolors of sunsets, or the rain falling on the green and peaceful pasturelands. She personalizes these women as "our mothers and grandmothers.” Both Walker and Toomer felt that black women were unhappy and felt unloved and they were not allowed to dream, yet alone pursue them. "They were Creators, who lived lives of spiritual waste, because they were so rich in spirituality, which is the basis of art, that the strain of enduring their unused and unwanted talent drove them insane". Walker lists a few talented black women who were unnoticed or unheard of.Virginnia Woolf an d Phillis Wheatley are two of the writers in the list. Walker compares both the writers and comes to the conclusion that all of Woolf's fears were Wheatley's reality; due to restraints, all of Woolf's goals were unachievable for Wheatley. Woolf writes, "any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at. For it needs little skill and psychology to be sure that a highly gifted girl who had tried to use her gift for poetry would have been so thwarted and hindered by contrary instincts, that she must have lost her health and sanity to a certainty." Wheatley experienced everything Woolf dreaded, although Wheatley was granted limited freedom of expression and education by her owners. Walker focuses on the phrase, "contrary instincts"used by Woolf, believing that this is what Wheatley felt since she was taught that her origin was an untamed and inadequate culture and race. In Wheatley's poetry she describes a "goddess" which Walker perceives as her owner, whom Wheatley appreciates although she was enslaved by this person. Walker pays tribute to Wheatley when she writes, “But at last Phillis, we understand. No more snickering when your stiff, struggling, ambivalent lines are forced on us. We know now that you were not an idiot or a traitor”. According to Walker, society viewed Black women as, "the mule of the world", this caused black women to become emotionless and hopeless. Further, in the essay Walker gives a personal account of her own mother, "And yet, it is to my mother-and all our mothers who were not famous-that I went in search of the secret if what has fed that muzzled and often mutilated, but vibrant, creative spirit that the black woman has inherited, and that pops out in wild and unlikely places to this day". Walker describes her mother's simple, but appreciated talent of gardening. For Walker, her mother's ability to continue gardening despite her poor living conditions portrays her mother's strong persona and ability to strive even in hardship’ The theme and idea of legacy reoccurs towards the end of the essay. Walker describes, the legacy of her mother, "Her face, as she prepares the Art that is her gift is a legacy of respect she leaves to me, for all that illuminates and cherishes life".Walker reveals how she has found and understood herself, while researching her heritage.
"From An Interview" gives readers a deeper insight on Walker's personal struggle with self-worth. Walker extensively reveals her inner conflicts and the imperative events in her life that has made her the person she is. Walker refers to herself as a "solitary"person from as early as her childhood. Walker discloses that she was teased as a child due to her disfigurement, which made her feel worthless and later on as a college student she began to seriously contemplate suicide. Walker says, "That year I made myself acquainted with every philosopher's position on suicide, because by that time it did not seem frightening or even odd, but only inevitable". Walker also began to lose her faith in a higher being because she felt as though her thoughts of suicide disappointed God, therefore weakening her relationship with him. Walker explains that with the help of friends and poetry she unraveled herself from this path of self-destruction. According to Walker her main release of energy is through poetry. Walker then explains her passion for poetry, "Since that time, it seems to me that all of my poems-and I write groups of poems rather than singles-are written when I have successfully pulled myself out of a completely numbing despair, and stand again in the sunlight. Writing poems is my way of celebrating with the world that I have not committed suicide the night before". Walker expresses that with her experiences she has developed a passion to help Black women who lack the self-esteem as she once did.If the Present Looks Like the Past, What Does the Future Look Like? addresses the divide within the black community. In the opening of the essay Walker bluntly begins with the division among lighter and darker skinned black women. To her Colorism is prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on their color.She feels unless it is tackled and solved in their communities they cannot progress, as a people. For colorism, like colonialism, sexism, and racism, impedes us". Walker encourages the two groups to be sensitive towards one another, or else progression of Black people will be haunted. Walker urges Black people to pave the way for future generations by eliminating the distress they experienced