Jeannette Bayardelle as Celie and LaToya London as Nettie in “The Color Purple”

After her novel was adapted for the screen, Alice Walker's moving tribute to love and its healing capacity was met with picket signs and boycotts. Speaking at an event celebrating the California Coalition for Women Prisoner's newsletter, The Fire Inside, on its 10th anniversary, Walker told of the hurt she felt when people interpreted her story as hatred toward Black men. She said nothing was further from the truth.

My reading of the novel and then seeing the film found it not an attack on Black men; rather, it was a call to heal our relationships. The character Mister, though fictional, is real, not a mysterious boogeyman. I know people just like him.

London was at her hairdresser's in Chicago when we spoke by phone a couple of weeks ago. It was my second time speaking to the lovely singer - the first, just a week earlier. Then she was on location doing a photo shoot and I was sitting in the parking lot at work, tape recorder rolling. I had the singer on speaker phone so I didn't miss a single word.

Prompted by her very cool agent, she sang my name across the line - and guess what? When we completed our conversation and said our goodbyes, as I started my car and began to listen to the recording - it hadn't taped. Nada. Nothing. I pulled over and tried to reconstruct the interview from notes; however, my paraphrases didn't begin to capture the intent of the responses.

So I called Mikal Kamil at 3 Kingdoms and asked if he could schedule another interview for me. He was so kind - it didn't hurt that it's Ramadan and he was fasting also. London wasn't available the day I called back, but she was a week later. I could hear the ladies in the background trying to take care of their client while she spoke to me. I could imagine the difficulty they must have been having: How do you do someone's hair while she talks on the phone?

I asked her to talk about the significance of Nettie's travel to Africa and how this journey to the motherland expands the world of the novel and by extension the play. How does the inclusion of Africa and Africans in the story broaden the scope of the work as a story about healing?

London: The fact that the same issues here are also going on in Africa makes it relevant. The issues in both places were education. Mister kept Celie from going to school, but in Africa women were not to be educated, and Nettie went over there and wanted to change that situation.

WS: Did any of what Nettie experienced in Africa add to the healing of the family?

London: She went to Africa and she was dealing with a situation with the women being uneducated and her wanting to change that type of mentality there and at home. (But) Africa was a cultural shock for her too. She had to convert to that culture. The young girl had to decide whether or not to be circumcised.
Yes, when Nettie came back and decided to bring her African culture with her and share with her sister, Celie, the two worlds were able to come together.

WS: Last week you said that Nettie reminded you of yourself - the spunk, audacity and fearlessness. Elaborate for me on these qualities the two of you share and if this was what sold you on the role?

London: Nettie was a very exciting role to play. She looked at life as an adventure and this made her excited. She appreciated the little things. That's how I am. Every day I wake up, I'm grateful that I woke up. I want to educate myself. When I was younger, like any child, I didn't like school, and then when I became (more) educated in life, it made me want to become more educated in school. I wanted to read more and then share my knowledge about life and about what I learned in books as well.

Nettie has that drive to go out and see the world and do missionary work. She didn't know she was going to be doing this when she taught her older sibling to read; she didn't realize then what impact that would have on their relationship - her ability to give, to be giving.

WS: When did the singing become the thing?

London: I'd already decided I wanted to be an artist before American Idol. I didn't really stay long in any one thing. Even when it came to jobs, I bounced around. I was at Costco for three years, but I always saw myself (on stage performing). I'd be working and I'd picture myself in my first video singing in front of people. I'd sing at work at the cashier stand. I just kept following it and went where it took me and it happened.

WS: But it's not really a secret, people have been doing this all along. People don't realize that the way to wellness sometimes means taking a bit of poison. "The Color Purple" is about healing relationships between Black women and Black men, between Black women and their children, between Black women and each other.

Talk about your character's role as medicine for the dysfunctional family and community she escapes from then returns to. What are her challenges at home and abroad and how does she reconcile these issues?
London: Being almost molested at home and witnessing her sister go through it, first of all Nettie wasn't going to stand for it. God made it that she ended up with her sister's kids when they were given away, so she was able to be there to protect them. Later she marries the reverend she went to Africa with, when his wife dies.

WS: I'm thinking about her role in the relationship as a healing balm. Like you said, she was a different kind of personality. She was not going to be molested. She was going to resist and the opportunity arose and she traveled and as fortune would have it - and it's also a novel - the wife dies and she and the reverend marry and then the couple returns. There is a certain healthiness to the relationships she has been able to develop between her niece and nephew, herself and the reverend and his wife, and then herself as the wife and also as the younger sister.

London: You've got it! That's everything I wanted to say. Yes, you're absolutely right. A lot of things I hadn't thought about so thoroughly. Her relationships with all of them, how she kind of proves it's just about love. The bottom line in the bigger picture is that we love and we make sure that we function and that we communicate is proof that it can work in this novel. That the characters can forgive and be forgiving. Forgiveness and love helps us heal all that separates us.

WS: I was watching a film last night, "Maat, Maafa and Sankofa," directed by Brother Anyinka Kwesi Nkululeko, and I'd never known the definition or one of the interpretations of the Sankofa symbol - the bird with its head turned around backward - was one's ability to go back and not only fetch it, you can go back and fix it. In the story, "The Color Purple," all the relationships you mention, the dysfunction, if it's all about love, you can actually heal these things. You can heal these things in life. If you make a mistake, you can repair it with love.

London: It's all in communicating. When you communicate, you see the emotions from both sides. When two people are going through this you have an opportunity to see another's viewpoint and ask those questions that can only be answered by the source, the other person has an opportunity to let you know why they feel the way they do. If you talk about it, you can work it out through the love you share. Yes, dysfunction can be reversed.

WS: The women all love each other and to a certain extent, they try to even love these men (I laugh). I wondered if you have any favorite scenes or songs.

London: My favorite song is "Too Beautiful for Words" and "What About Love." My favorite scenes are all the ones with the church ladies and all of their songs because their harmonies are so dope! Some of them are intricate harmonies. The things that they say are so hilarious and entertaining and funny. Let's see, the "Juke Joint" scene is also funny.

WS: Literacy is really important in our community and I wondered if you could talk about the letters Nettie writes home and their significance.

London: Wow! Well, Nettie started off teaching her sister, Celie, how to read, and it was a good thing she did because that was the only way they could stay in touch once Nettie went to Africa. When Celie found the letters Mister had hidden, she was able to read them and respond. Literacy was one of the only things her sister left her - the value of education and reading. If it weren't for this gift, she wouldn't have been able to learn of her sister's whereabouts and keep the faith (that they'd be reunited one day).

WS: You mentioned last week that the kick-off for the essay contest was successful. Did I read somewhere that the essay contest was your idea?

London: No, it wasn't.

WS: I know the choice of schools was, because you went to Skyline High School.

London: My purpose at the high school to kick off the essay contest was to give the children an opportunity to relate to someone. I've been to the school. They look up to me and I'm in the show and this is a part of a wonderful story I'm a part of and they are going to see. It has a message for everyone, young and old. It should change everyone's life. The essay question is: How I changed my own life. This is central to the story, how Celie changed her life by listening to the lessons, all the lessons she experienced throughout the story.

WS: When we spoke last week, thousands were in Jena, Louisiana, to protest the unfair imprisonment of Mychal Bell, and that same week, the Oakland police shot and killed a young Black man. What are your thoughts on violence in the home - "The Color Purple" looks at that in a lot of different dimensions - and violence on the streets?

London: Like we were speaking about before, the dysfunction in the home when not addressed spills out into the community. That's why we have crime on the streets. I don't know why the policeman shot the young man in the back, but it was probably racism - racism taught in the home. We aren't correcting these things so they cycle. The problem is never going to go away until we begin to change the minds of our young people. Unfortunately, we're old dogs and it's hard to teach us new tricks, but if we put it in young children, that would definitely help for generations to come.

WS: You mentioned last week about how wonderful it was to be a part of such a phenomenal cast. Can you tell me again what's special about being one of the lead actors in "The Color Purple"?

London: Working with the other actresses is great. I don't have any scenes with Michelle Williams (Shug Avery), other than at the end when I'm reunited with Celie (actress Jeannette Bayardelle). I share a moment with Shug. We're cool. Off set we have our lives, and when we come together it's just positive.
Thank goodness three Black women are in a play that promotes positivity - (we) set the tone. Jeannette and I work together a lot, so we have formed a bond outside of work. We don't hang out, but we're definitely sisters in spirit. Michelle, same thing. Definitely it's the strength of sisterhood that binds this cast and I'm glad I'm playing opposite such wonderful women.

"The Color Purple" is a story that is so appropriate this Maafa season. Alice Walker might have been the medium, but she didn't make up the story. The same way Toni Morrison didn't make up "The Bluest Eye," opening at Lorraine Hansberry this week also. "The Color Purple" is up at the Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market St. in San Francisco, Oct. 9 through Dec. 9. The theatre is right at Civic Center BART.

Bay View Arts Editor Wanda Sabir can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Visit her website, www.wandaspicks.com, for an expanded version of Wanda's Picks and for exciting "web exclusives."

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