The Color Purple

Rebecca's mother was the author alice walker, who would go on to write the color purple and win a pooletsfor it. But back in 19 69, she and her husband, melvin letenthe, an idealistic jewish lawyer, were civil rights optivists. They wanted to be living examples of a successful interratial family in a races southern state. And re Rebecca, by her very existence, would embody those ideals. By the time she was seven, the vagaries of a real life marriage trumped its idealism.