The Color Purple by Alice Walker is a widely acclaimed novel set in early 1900s rural Georgia. The book has been turned into a film and musical and is widely beloved while also being somewhat controversial. However, I believe there are a few lessons that can be learnt from the novel about telling history in its entirety and the importance of historical context in how we understand any story, particularly ones set in a historical setting.

As a book about Black people living in the 1900s south there is, of course, a very important historical context regarding the treatment of Black people in society at that time and I implore you to go out and learn about the experiences of Black people after the end of slavery because it is a hugely important history. That being said, it's not the history we are going to focus on today. Today I am going to talk about the relationship between Shug Avery, a jazz and blues singer and the main character called Celie. If you have read the book, you will know that these two characters become friends and then later lovers. When I read this book, I found this relationship very interesting. It is beautifully written and forms an important turning point for Celie as a character. However, the importance can be overlooked, or the relationship censored. In fact, the book has frequently appeared on The American Library Association's list of top one hundred banned and challenged books in the US coming in at 17th. While the book is often challenged based on the depictions of violence, the sexual explicitness and homosexuality are also cited as reasons to 'ban' the book. In addition, Steven Spielberg, the director of the film adaption, has been criticised for almost entirely removing the sexual relationship between Shug and Celie and instead having a single kiss between the two. Spielberg was also widely criticised for being a white director telling a story about Black people with many suggesting a director with a closer relationship with the story could have made a better film. Clearly, and unsurprisingly, the sexual relationship is controversial particularly with the creation of new adaptations. This is where the historical context becomes very relevant.

It's easy to see this relationship as an outlier or at least a story that doesn't really need to be told. However, The Color Purple was released in 1982, right at the beginning of the Aids epidemic. It was not a time where stories about queer people were being widely told, especially not Black queer women. Thus, the narrative that Shug and Celie's relationship doesn't belong makes sense. However, a better understanding of history would tell you that this narrative could not be further from the truth.

The book is believed to be set from about 1909 to 1949. Thus, some of the book is set in the 'roaring twenties' which often summons images like those in The Great Gatsby however it was not just rich white people who were partying. In fact, the 1910s through to the mid-1930s are often referred to as a golden age in African American literature, music, stage performance and art. This period is called the Harlem Renaissance as large numbers of Black people moved up north to Harlem in New York city resulting in a thriving area for Black culture. Countless Black creatives were producing amazing work at this time (which you can learn more about from this podcast), including musicians. Jazz was the prominent style of the time and huge names such as Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong were very popular. Black musicians were stealing the stage so much so the clubs such as the Cotton Club were set up so that white people could enjoy these Black performers in a white only space. These clubs were looked down upon by many Black people at the time, but to some showed that Black culture was becoming more acceptable to the white man.

Blues was another hugely popular genre at the time. Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Lucille Bogan were known as the 'big three' of 1920s blues with Bessie Smith aka "Empress of the Blues" performing the most famous club venues in the country and ending up as the highest-paid black entertainer of her time. Ma Rainey was one of the first blues singers to be recorded and was somewhat of a diva as the 2020 Netflix film Ma Rainey's Black Bottom portrays. Most importantly though, all three of these women were Black and queer. Their music contained sexually explicit lines referring to their queerness and they were still some of the most successful musicians of their time.

But what does any of this have to do with The Color Purple? This historical context can completely change the way we view the characters of Celie and Shug. It's easy to dismiss their relationship as vulgar or to see it as an anomaly when in fact, Shug was replicating the success of other Black queer female musicians and their relationship was not a strange outlier. In fact, queer relationships were being sung about in 'mainstream' music. I recently watched a documentary called Pride on Disney+ (which I highly recommend) that points out that queer people did not just pop up in the 1980s. Queer people have existed for as long as humans have existed. However, they are often left out of the history books. This is why understanding the historical context of this book is so important. A lot of the book is about misery and extreme challenges that the characters face while Celie and Shug's relationship offers joy, peace and for Celie the companionship she really needed. Similarly, the Harlem Renaissance was a time of great joy and success for Black people and unfortunately, these parts of Black stories that display joy or success are often left out, as happened in the film adaptation, and as happens constantly in our telling of history. We cannot just tell stories about the struggles of a certain marginalised community. We must too tell stories about their joy and success. Whether those stories are fictionally or historically they need to be told.

When we are reading any kind of book, we must remember that someone sat down to write that book and that they may have an entirely different understanding of history than we do. An author's understanding of history will always seep into their work somewhere and it's up to the reader to be able to spot it. The Colour Purple is a great example of this as the historical context doesn't just sneak in, it makes the whole book. Another good example of this is George Orwell's 1984. While it could be read as slightly creepy dystopia, it could also be read as a chilling warning that bears very close resemblance to the Soviet Union that, at times, takes its descriptions of its made-up world straight from a history book about Soviet Russia. Thus, a greater understanding of history here too changes the way a reader may interpret the story.

So please, keep learning. Keep listening to stories that make you uncomfortable or ones you haven't heard before because they may give you a new perspective on a story you love and that is something truly special and important as we seek to make the world a better place.