Evelyn C. White papers

Evelyn Corliss White was born in Chicago in 1954 to Amanda Cantrells and Andrew S. White. Her siblings are Andrew White, Jr., Antoine White, Angelo White, and Phyllis A. White. She grew up in a working class neighborhood in Gary, Indiana. After graduating from Wellesley College in 1976, she worked for a theatre company in Denmark. Returning to the United States, she studied theatre at the University of Washington and began writing professionally while living in Seattle. She graduated from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1985, where she received the Christopher Trump Award for her Master's thesis on "The Racial Development of Blind Black Children." She earned a Master's degree in public administration from Harvard University (1991) and edited The Black Women's Health Book: Speaking For Ourselves (1994). As a former legal advocate for the Battered Women's Program in the Seattle City Attorney's office, White also studied intimate partner violence as the author of Chain Chain Change: For Black Women in Abusive Relationships (1995). White took ten years to research and write her authorized biography of Alice Walker, Alice Walker: A Life (2004). Previously she published articles, essays and reviews on issues relating to women of African descent in publications that include The Vancouver Sun, Smithsonian, Essence, Ms., Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Enquirer, The Seattle Times and The Washington Post. White also co-authored two photography books: The African Americans (1993), and Every Goodbye Ain't Gone: A Photo Narrative of Black Heritage on Salt Spring Island. As of 2010, she lives with her partner, Joanne Bealy, in Salt Spring Island, British Columbia.