The Unglamorous But Worthwhile Duties Of The Black Revolutionary Artist, Or Of The Black Writer Who Simply Works And Writes by Alice Walker - Summary

This is a lecture that Walker gave at Sarah Lawrence, her alma mater. At Sarah Lawrence, she says, she felt free to live and create for the first time. After she graduated she realized that there was a gap in her education and her identity, for she had been taught the history of the south exclusively from a white point of view. Blacks have to study black texts. She discusses the literary canon and how blacks are missing from it.

Where she would teach, instruction of texts written by black people is integral and invaluable. Many blacks feel that they lack history and art to relate to. Walker has made it a private mission to investigate into black writing and make them better known. Currently, they are not well known. These poems, though not in anthologies, are in her heart.

She hopes she is a black revolutionary because she is always changing, and "for the good of more black people". She suggests that artists lock themselves up and produce work. But, she qualifies, black writers must be aware of the audience they want to reach. Sometimes their role is to teach. These are not glamorous roles. It is important for the artist to be accessible to the black population for whom he writes.

It is also important for black artists to preserve what was created before them, to preserve black heritage.

Walker speaks of hate. She says that individuals can and should sometimes be hated but not groups. Reality should be reflected as is, and it does not always fall into easily definable groups. She writes reality, and somehow when she writes about other people, but also herself.

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Interesting snippets:

·       looking to the past instead of the future - opposite of white American discourse

·       definition of art for Walker