Notes Introduction 1. Katie G. Cannon, “The Emergence of Black Feminist Consciousness,” in Feminist Interpretation of the Bible, ed. Letty M. Russell (Louisville, KY: Westminster Press, 1985); Renita J. Weems, Just a Sister Away: Understanding the Timeless Connection between Women of Today and Women in the Bible (West Bloomfield, M: Walk Worthy Press, 1988); Jacquelyn Grant, White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus: Feminist Christology and Womanist Response (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989); and Delores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk (New York: Orbis Books, 1993). 2. This date marks the publication of Katie G. Cannon’s essay, “The Emergence of Black Feminist Consciousness” first published in Letty M. Russell, ed., Feminist Interpretation of the Bible (Louisville, KY: Westminster Press, 1985), 30–40. 3. Grant, White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus, 209. 4. For more on first-wave womanist perspectives on Christian categories, includ- ing sacrifice, servanthood, and unmerited suffering, see Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness; Grant, White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus; and Weems, Just a Sister Away. 5. In addition to these fields, womanism critically engages a variety of disci- plines and theological perspectives by helping to expose ways in which racist- classist-sexist-heterosexist and other oppressive norms may operate within the approaches, methods, and studies of various perspectives within religion. 6. For more information on the argument of this sort, see Katie G. Cannon, Black Womanist Ethics (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988). 7. Contrary to the attitudes of some white feminists who saw themselves as “sep- aratists” and noninclusive of men, Walker’s term “womanist” suggests that including black men in the movement of affirming black women is essential. Walker’s inclusion of black men in her womanist vision can be seen in her description of a classroom setting in which she was teaching feminist aes- thetics, recorded in her essay “Breaking Chains and Encouraging Life,” in her book In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983), 278–289: A white woman says: “I would love to work with black and third-world women, but I’m a separatist.” 152 Notes “A What?” “Well, black and third-world women always seem connected to some man. Since I’m a separatist, this means I can’t work with them. What do you suggest I do?” “Personally, I’m not giving up Stevie Wonder and John Lennon, no matter what,’ I reply, ‘but you should do whatever you want to do, which obviously is not to work with black and third-world women.” 8. Alice Walker, “Coming Apart,” in Take Back the Night, ed. Laura Lederer (New York: Harper Perennial, 1980). It should also be noted that Walker provides further explication of the term in her essay “Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca Jackson,” originally published as part of the collection of nonfiction essays In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens. 9. Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, xi–xii. 10. Barbara Smith, Toward a Black Feminist Criticism (New York: Crossing Press, 1977); Angela Davis, Women, Race and Class (New York: Random House, 1983); Paula Giddings, When and Where I Enter . The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America (New York: William Morrow, 1984); Gloria Wade-Gayles, No Crystal Stair: Visions of Race and Sex in Black Women’s Fiction (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1984); bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism (Boston: South End Press, 1981); and All the Women Are White, and All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave, ed. Gloria Hull, Patricia Scott, and Barbara Smith (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978). 11. Cheryl J. Sanders, Katie G. Cannon, Emilie M. Townes, M. Shawn Copeland, bell hooks, and Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, eds., “Roundtable Discussion: Christian Ethics and Theology in Womanist Perspective,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion (1989): 83–112. 12. Ibid., 92. 13. Ibid., 87. 14. Namely, Katie G. Cannon, Emilie M. Townes, M. Shawn Copeland, bell hooks, Cheryl Townsend Gilkes. 15. Sanders et al, “Roundtable Discussion,” 83–112. 16. Ibid., 85. 17. Alice Walker, Moved to Speak interview by Scott Winn on November 15, 2000, found on http://www.realchangenews.org/2000/2000_11_15/ features/walker_moved_to.html 18. Others have labeled Walker a black theological philosopher within the school of academic black theology. See Fredrick L. Ware, Methodologies of Black Theology (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2002). Scholar Anthony B. Pinn also refers to Walker as a humanist in his work Noise and Spirit: The Religious and Spiritual Sensibilities of Rap Music (New York: New York University Press, 2003). Walker, however, is a self-proclaimed pagan. See the preface of The Color Purple, 10th Anniversary Edition (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992), xi. 19. Ibid. Notes 153 20. In her essay “The Only Reason You Want to Get to Heaven . ,” in Anything We Love Can Be Saved (New York: Ballantine Books, 1997), 25, Walker explains Jesus’ role in her theology: “I further maintain that the Jesus most of us have been brought up to adore must be expanded to include the ‘wiz- ard’ and the dancer and that when this is done, it becomes clear that he coexists quite easily with pagan indigenous peoples.” 21. It is interesting to note the role of patriarchy and hierarchy that are also established in Christian theological thought and whether the influence of these structures within womanism has influenced womanists’ narrow selec- tion of religious dialogue partners. In essence, is it patriarchy within wom- anism that limits womanists from talking to black women in other religious traditions? 22. This quote was taken from an audio recording of M. Shawn Copeland’s response to a question regarding Walker’s paganism at the “Songs We Thought We Knew”: A Conference Celebrating the Work and Thought of Delores S. Williams and the Future of Womanist Theology, April 30, 2004 at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. 23. For example, Stephanie Y. Mitchem, Introducing Womanist Theology (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002) is an important contribution but refers only to Walker’s definition of “womanist” and the book In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens as it relates to its relevance to the state of womanist the- ology and ethics. Delores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness, also refer- ences Walker’s definition and highlights The Color Purple as an important literary source of womanist theology but does not reference Walker’s own nonfiction work. On the other hand, Katie G. Cannon’s reference to I Love Myself When I Am Laughing . And Then Again When I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader (Old Westbury, NY: Feminist Press, 1979) and select essays in In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens are recorded in Black Womanist Ethics. Her book Katie’s Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community (New York: Continuum, 1996) also refers to Walker’s nonfiction essays. 24. Sanders et al, “Roundtable Discussion,” 85. 25. Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, 71–82. 26. See Emilie M. Townes’s reference to Walker’s womanist definition and The Color Purple in In a Blaze of Glory: Womanist Spirituality As Social Witness (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 68–88; Delores S. Williams’s reference to The Color Purple in Sisters in the Wilderness, 52–56; and M. Shawn Copeland’s reference to The Third Life of Grange Copeland during a womanist panel-audience dialogue at the womanist conference given in celebration of the work and thought of Williams and the future of womanist theology, Union Theological Seminary, April 30, 2004. 27. See Cannon’s Black Womanist Ethics and Katie’s Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community. 28. Marcia Y. Riggs, Awake, Arise & Act: A Womanist Call for Black Liberation (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1994), 2. 29. Ibid., 2. 154 Notes 1 “A Womanist Story”: Alice Walker’s Moral Biography 1. Willie Fred, born January 10, 1930; Mamie Lee, born February 15, 1932; William Henry, born March 23, 1943 (died July 1, 1996), James Thomas, born November 21, 1935 (died February 10, 2002); Annie Ruth, born October 31, 1937; Robert Louis, born November 23, 1940; Curtis Ulysses, born July 5, 1942; and Alice Malsenior, born February 9, 1944. 2. Alice Walker, “Choice: A Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” in In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983), 142. 3. Alice Walker, “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens,” in In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, 231–243. 4. Evelyn C. White, Alice Walker: A Life (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), 12. 5. Walker, “Choice: A Tribute,” 143. 6. Alice Walker, “The Only Reason You Want to Go to Heaven Is That You Have Been Driven Out of Your Mind (Off Your Land and Out of Your Lover’s Arms) Clear Seeing Inherited Religion and Reclaiming the Pagan Self,” in Anything We Love Can Be Saved: A Writer’s Activism (New York: Ballantine Books, 1997), 3–27. 7. Walker, “Choice: A Tribute,” 143. 8. No birth date or day of decease is given for Albert Walker. For the genealogy of Alice Walker’s family, consult White, Alice Walker. 9. Ibid., 18. 10. Ibid. 11. For more on the cross movements between Alice Walker’s family and her fiction, see White’s Alice Walker. 12. Ibid., 19. 13. Alice Walker, “Father,” in Living by the Word (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988), 14. 14. Interview with Bill Walker referenced in White, Alice Walker, 21. 15. Interviews with Annie Ruth Hood Walker in White, Alice Walker, 11.