Tonight on PBS: Alice Walker

Tonight on most PBS stations is the premiere of a new episode of the American Masters series, “Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth,” in honor of the acclaimed author’s 70th birthday and Black History Month. Walker is the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction with her novel The Color Purple, which also won the National Book Award. Her other books include The Third Life of Grange Copeland, Meridian, The Temple of My Familiar, and Possessing the Secret of Joy. In her public life, Walker has worked to address problems of injustice, inequality, and poverty as an activist, teacher, and public intellectual.

Here, in an outtake from the film, Alice Walker talks about taking a segregated bus to go to Spelman College.

She was a major force in bringing public attention to the work of Zora Neale Hurston.

A sneak preview of the program is available online.