Sarah Buchholtz
Features Editor
On Feb. 27, The College of Wooster’s English Department gathered to celebrate current and new majors, along with the life and legacy of esteemed novelist Toni Morrison. Born Chloe Anthony Wofford on Feb. 17, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio, Morrison has become one of the most influential literary voices in American history. In 1993, she made history by being the first Black woman to receive a Nobel Prize.
Morrison graduated from Howard University with a B.A. in English in 1953 and went on to complete her master’s degree in American literature at Cornell University in 1955. After graduating, she began her teaching career at Texas Southern University, where she taught until 1957, when she returned to Howard University until 1964.
Following her teaching career, Morrison began working as an editor for a textbook division of the publisher Random House. Two years later, she moved to Random House publishers’ main office and became their first Black woman senior editor in the fiction department.
Morrison published her first novel, “The Bluest Eye,” in 1970. Shortly after, she published “Sula” (1973), but didn’t gain mainstream national attention until the release of “Song of Solomon” (1977), which earned her the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her 1981 novel, “Tar Baby,” further established her literary reputation, and “Beloved” (1987) became her most celebrated work, earning her the Pulitzer Prize and a film adaptation in 1998. Morrison went on to write six additional novels after “Beloved,” with her last being “God Help the Child” in 2015, totaling 11 novels in her career. In addition to her solo works, she co-wrote six children’s books with her son, Slade Morrison.
In 1996, the National Endowment for the Humanities honored Morrison with the Jefferson Lecture, the highest honor for achievement in the humanities. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in May of 2012 and earned over 30 awards throughout her career. In 2013, she was awarded an honorary doctoral degree from Princeton University. Following her passing on Aug. 5, 2019, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2020.
Morrison’s work confronted the harsh reality of racism in the United States and highlighted the complexity and depth of the Black American experience. Her storytelling not only reshaped American literature but also created space for marginalized voices to be seen and heard on a national scale. As a powerful bridge between Black History Month and Women’s History Month, Morrison’s legacy continues to inspire and influence American literature.