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Part 1

• On Walker's first birthday, her mother fed her two of her favorite foods, chitterlings and chocolate cake.

• Walker celebrated with her indulgent parents, though her father, a lawyer, left right after to go to work.

• Walker's father was a civil rights lawyer, Caucasian, in Jackson, Mississippi.

• Walker was born seven months after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
• Life in Jackson existed as a parade of visitors to Walker, as family visits occurred regularly, along with international visitors for her writer mother.

• One of the more memorable visitors of Walker's childhood was her father' mother, Grandma Miriam, who visited from Brooklyn and fawned over her only granddaughter, but treated her black daughter-in-law with indifference.

• The theme of forced independence arises early in Walker's life, when her father encouraged a shaky preschool-aged girl to walk by herself down the block to her nursery school.
• Tender family moments...

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