This master’s thesis provides an analysis of Alice Walker’s novels The Color Purple (1982) and Meridian (1976) in relation to the Civil Rights Movement and its legacy. It discusses the theme of African American female experience of inequality and discrimination in terms of both gender and race. The paper argues that even though their time frames differ, as The Color Purple is set at the beginning of the twentieth century and Meridian reflects the years during and following the Civil Rights Movement, the novels’ main characters share the experience of double oppression by both White supremacist and patriarchal social structures. The Color Purple depicts the trials and tribulations in the life of its protagonist, Celie, who endures mistreatment perpetuated by Black men on a daily basis. Likewise, Meridian depicts racial and gender discrimination in the rural South, exposing Black women’s confinement by the dominant standards of femininity. The analysis of Meridian focuses on three motifs – the story of Marilene O’Shay, the Wild Child, and the Sojourner Tree – through which it exposes the suppression of Black women’s voice and their social marginalization. The paper also examines the ways in which this novel addresses the rift within the Civil Rights Movement, caused by the shift from nonviolent to radical activism, and argues that both novels advance Walker’s concept of “womanism” by celebrating female solidarity, which helps their heroines resolve their marginalized position and overcome racial oppression and patriarchal constraints imposed on Black femininity.