Toni Morrison (1931–2019)

Toni Morrison, a writer whose work examined black identity in America, especially the experiences of black women, died on August 5 at age 88. Professor emeritus at Princeton University and a Bard College Center Fellow and visiting professor at Bard from 1979–82, Morrison was the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, doing so in 1993. She was the author of 11 novels—including Song of Solomon, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977, and Beloved, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988—as well as nonfiction, children’s books, and plays. She received the National Humanities Medal in 2000 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama in 2012. Morrison was the first female African American editor in the history of publisher Random House, and used her position to promote authors of color—including Gayl Jones, Toni Cade Bambara, Henry Dumas, Huey P. Newton, Muhammad Ali, and Angela Davis—who might otherwise have been overlooked. In a speech for Bard’s 1979 Commencement, she said, “Don’t worry about freedom or happiness as personal goals on a tiny agenda. Worry about whether or not your freedom frees somebody else, and whether your happiness makes anybody else happy.”

Post Date: 08-05-2019