Chapter Two - Alice Childress

Summary

Life Sketch and Works

Alice Childress (1920–1994) was born on October 12, 1920, in Charleston, South Carolina. She moved from Charleston to Harlem in 1925, where she lived with her grandmother Eliza Campbell who became her legal guardian. She grew up in Harlem, New York City, where she was raised by her grandmother who was the daughter of a former slave. Childress was inspired to write at an early age by her grandmother who would sit with her at the window and encourage her to make up stories about the people who walked by. She attended two years of high school but left before receiving a degree.

Accompanying her grandmother, she used to visit regularly the Church where she listened to the poor people's troubles and witnessed the social ceremonies of the African American community. During those notable references, the poor people told their plights which Childress kept in mind for her future writings. She attended Public School, The Julia Ward Howe Junior High School, and then Wadleigh High School for three years, before dropping out when both her grandmother and mother died in the late 1930s. She was encouraged by her grandmother to use her imagination. Furthermore, due to her grandmother's instinctive love for arts, Childress visited periodically museums, art galleries, libraries, concert halls, and drama shows.

At the age of nineteen, she married Alvin Childress, an actor, who was renowned for his role as Amos in the controversial television show, Amos and Andy. In 1957, Alice and Alvin were divorced due to differences in their ideologies. Alvin left her alone with their only daughter Jean, but she got married to her friend and the company composer Nathan Woodard in the same year. He was a musician who composed music for many of her plays. Childress and Woodard were too dedicated and absorbed artists in theater, but kept a close space of intimacy between them which lasted for the end of their life. Childress died of cancer on August 14, 1994, in New York City.

Childress is indebted so much for her grandmother in her teachings and the art of storytelling. In her recent essay, Knowing the Human Condition, Childress makes the following statement:

My great grandmother was a slave. I am not proud or ashamed of that; it is only a fact […].