Celebrating Toni Morrison’s Homecoming
By Kia Thomas
The following piece was featured in the September 2019 edition of The Campus.
“Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.” - Beloved, 1987
On August 5th, 2019, the legendary writer, poet, playwright,and professor Toni Morrison took her ascent from our planet, joining the restof our great ancestors.
In 1931, Toni Morrison was born Chloe Anthony Wofford in anintegrated neighborhood in Lorraine, Ohio. She attended Howard University topursue writing and literature and received her master’s from Cornell University.She went on to become an editor at Random House, working for influentialfigures such as Toni Cade Bambara and Angela Davis. She began her writingcareer with The Bluest Eye, written in 1970. Her bibliography consistsof novels, plays, children’s literature, and nonfiction books. Her most famousworks include Beloved, Sula, Tar Baby and Song ofSolomon.
Morrison is a mother to two sons: Slade Morrison, a painterand musician, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2010, and Harold Ford Morrison,an architect.
Like Morrison and many other black writers, I grew up onalmost exclusively white literature. I’d heard her name and knew of hercontributions to the world of literature, but I was busy fawning over authorswho did not address me, did not look like me, and often, were racist in theirworks and personal lives. It did not take long for me to realize the incredibleprofoundness of her writing.
Nakyia, a writer based in Atlanta, cites Morrison asmotivation for her writing. She said, “Toni is responsible for allowing me tofall in love with literature and realizing that my words alone are meditation.”At age fifteen, she read The Bluest Eye, a book that changed her life, “That book told the raw,uncomfortable truth about the journey to self-love and what it took ourancestors to experience (it)… That book was the start of a revolution in me,and it saved my life.” For Nakyia, Toni Morrison’s legacy is the reason shecontinues to write.
Doris Alvarez of Queens named Toni Morrison as her favoriteauthor. Alvarez was also deeply impacted by The Bluest Eye. “I was tooyoung to understand the themes, but I couldn’t put it down. I read it multipletimes because I felt that there was always a little message or symbolism ineach word,” she said.
Morrison opened Alvarez’s eyes to the nuances of racism inthe United States. She said, "It impacted me because I began to wonder,how many other children have felt this? That if they looked ‘right’, they wouldbe treated better? Colorism was also a theme in the book, and that’s how Ilearned about it.”
Alvarez, who is a writer in her free time, appreciatedMorrison’s complexity as an author. “Her books opened my eyes. What impacted mewas the way she wrote her characters. Each one was different; they were theirown person and they didn’t fit into a box.” she said.
Morrison’s legacy lies in her ability to carve a path notonly for herself, but for others. She pushed against all odds and made spacefor herself without asking for permission. Through the tragedy, shock, andmourning, what we have come to realize is the legacy of Toni Morrison, thewords and ideas that still reverberate the minds, hearts, and spirits of peopleacross the globe, will never die.
