Toni Morrison Biography

Toni Morrison was born Chloe Anthony Wofford, on February 18th 1931. She was the second of her parent’s four children, who grew up in the small town of Lorain, Ohio. Her parents, Raman and George came from a time where racism played a large role in their surroundings. Growing up in a small town as an African American girl, she grew up living her life with the idea that the only place she could turn for help was her community.

When it came to her education, Toni Morrison graduated high school with honors in 1949. Before she started her career in college, she changed her name from Chloe to Toni. She got Toni from her middle name Anthony. She then enrolled in Howard University, located in Washington D.C. In the year 1953, she graduated with a bachelors’ degree in English and a minor in classics. However she didn’t stop there, she continued her education in graduate studies at Cornell University located in Itacha N. Y. By the year 1953, she completed her master thesis on Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner to get a master of the arts.

After completing her education, she began to teach at Texas Southern University. After a short two years, she left Texas and returned to Howard University, only this time as an English professor. During her time at Howard, she met a man named Harold Morrison. Mr. Morrison was an architect from Jamaica as well as fellow faculty member. It wasn’t long before they were married and had two children. Both were sons, Harold Ford and Slade Kevin. After some turbulence in their marriage, they divorced in 1964. Wanting to get away and start fresh she left her job at Howard to become associate editor for the Random House of New York. After working at the random house for six years it was finally time for her to shine in the writing world.

In 1970, the publication of Morrison’s first novel “The Bluest Eye” marked the beginning of her professional writing career. In this novel, Morrison lays the foundations of what would later become her some of her main themes in writing, African American identity, society and the influence of racism. The novel shows how the influence of white society influences the African Americans and the subsequent consequences of this influence. You can hear Morrison reading an excerpt of this novel here: http://media.salon.com/mp3s/morrison2.mp3

In 1977, Morrison’s “Song of Solomon” was published. In this novel, Morrison revisits the themes of Black Culture and the effects of racism. The main character Milkman Dead seems to become a symbol of the African American’s struggle to find identity. In the same year, this novel was the first chosen to be part of the Book of the Month Club since Richard Wright’s “Native Son” in 1940. In 1978 Morrison became distinguished writer by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and she received the National Book Critics’ Circle Award, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award, Oscar Micheaux Award, Friends of Writers Award, and the Cleveland Arts Prize for Literature for “Song of Solomon”. In 1980, Morrison was appointed to National Council on the Arts. Here is an excerpt of “Song of Solomon:” http://search2.barnesandnoble.com/BookViewer/?ean=9781400033423

Up until the 1980’s, Morrison tended to shy away from writing about the interaction between her white and black characters. In 1981, she wrote her first novel dealing with this interaction called Tar Baby; a novel about a love affair between the two main characters, African Americans from different worlds. Although not considered to be one of Morrison’s most compelling novels, Tar Baby was praised for being a true insight into the African American psyche.

In 1983, after 20 years of working at Random House, Morrison left her position there and was soon after named the Albert Schweitzer Professor of the Humanities at the State University of New York in Albany. During 1984, Morrison began writing her first and only play, Dreaming Emmett, based on the true story of Emmett Till, an African American whom in 1955 was killed by racist whites after being accused of whistling at a white woman. The play premiered on January 4th, 1986 in Albany to positive reviews.

In 1987, Morrison wrote one of her most popular novels, Beloved. The story is loosely based on a slave named Margaret Garner whom in an attempt to escape slavery murdered her children. The novel was then adopted into a screenplay in 1998, staring Oprah Winfrey. Here is a clip of the trailer for the movie. Beloved was also so successful that in 2006 it was named the best novel of the last 25 years. Beloved won the Pulitzer Price, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and the Frederic G. Mekner Book Award in 1988.

While much of Toni Morrison’s early life was devoted to her college and post collegiate academic career, she has never slowed down in her achievements. She has become a very accomplished writer and certainly one of America’s most notable as well. Later on in her career she worked as a college professor and in that environment she thrived, producing several novels.

In 1989 she became a professor at Princeton University and would hold that position until 2006 when she retired. At Princeton she taught creative writing and contributed to women’s studies as well as African American studies. Morrison was also given the Robert F. Goheen chair on Princeton’s council of humanities, becoming the first African American woman to have a named chairmanship. She also in 1993 received the Nobel Price in literature for contributing so much to her field and once again was the first black woman and eighth woman to achieve this honor.
During this period she also published Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the literary Imagination and Jazz, a novel about life in New York during the 1920’s. Both of these books were published in 1992 just before she was awarded the Nobel Prize. Some of her more recent books include Paradise, written in 1998 and Love, written in 2003. It should also be noted that Morrison wrote children’s books such as The Big Box in 1999 and Mean People in 2002.

Toni Morrison has also, in recent years, been involved in United States politics. In 1998 she caused considerable controversy by stating that President Bill Clinton was the “first black president.” According to Morrison, the reasoning behind the statement was to deplore “the way in which President Clinton was being treated, vis-à-vis the sex scandal that was surrounding him. I said he was being treated like a black on the street, already guilty, already a perp.”

Most recently, in 2008, Morrison wrote a letter of endorsement for then Senator Barack Obama. This marks the first time Morrison had publically supported a presidential candidate.
Toni Morrison has been praised as one of the best writers of her time. She continues to leave behind a legacy with each novel and written work she produces.

Works Cited:

Answers. 18 Feb. 2006. 10 Feb. 2009 .

Author Chronology. The Toni Morrison Society. 10 Feb. 2009.
<http://www.tonimorrisonsociety.org/author.html>.

The Bluest Eye. SparkNotes LLC. 10 Feb. 2009.
<http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/bluesteye/summary.html>.

Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. Random House Audio. 2007

Morrison, Toni. Sula. Books on Tape. 2007.

Morrison, Toni. The Song of Solomon. Barnes and Noble. 2004. Zinio.com. 14 Feb 2009.
< ean="9781400033423">

Sula. SparkNotes LLC. 10 Feb. 2009. <http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/sula/summary.html>.

The Song of Solomon. SparkNotes LLC. 10 Feb. 2009.
<http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/solomon/summary.html>.

Time. 1 Feb. 2009 <http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1738303,00.html>

Toni Morrison by Douglas Century, Chelsea House Publishers, 1994Bois, Danuta. "Toni Morrison." Distinguished Women of Past and Present. 1996. 10 Feb 2009 <https://email.uc.edu/wm/mail/fetch.html?urlid=g46b2e8af2a4ed3b607b8a0cd4beccdd98pfp2plgcl&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.distinguishedwomen.com%2Fbiographies%2Fmorrison.html>.

Toni Morrison. Answers Corporation. 10 Feb. 2009. <http://www.answers.com/topic/toni-morrison>.

Toni Morrison “The Bluest Eye”. Salon.com. 10 Feb 2009
http://www.salon.com/audio/2000/10/05/morrison/index.html

Voices. 29 Jan. 2009 .

By Mia Berman ,Megan Peters, Jennifer Leever, and Michael Beiting