WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.379 Welcome to the Deep Dive. Our mission here is 00:00:02.379 --> 00:00:05.000 pretty simple. You give us the sources, the articles, 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:07.459 the research, all the critical analysis, and 00:00:07.459 --> 00:00:09.160 we just strip away the noise. We deliver the 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:12.859 essential insights, the complex context, and 00:00:12.859 --> 00:00:15.480 those aha moments you need to be truly well informed. 00:00:15.880 --> 00:00:20.100 And today we are taking on a, well, a monumental 00:00:20.100 --> 00:00:22.980 task. We're doing a deep dive into the world 00:00:22.980 --> 00:00:26.760 building and the... uncompromising vision of 00:00:26.760 --> 00:00:28.239 Toni Morrison. We're not just going to summarize 00:00:28.239 --> 00:00:30.660 her books. We're really tracing her journey all 00:00:30.660 --> 00:00:33.520 the way from a working class Ohio childhood to 00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:35.840 becoming a Nobel laureate, a hugely influential 00:00:35.840 --> 00:00:40.200 editor, and one of the most vital and... unapologetically 00:00:40.200 --> 00:00:42.320 black voices to ever define American letters. 00:00:42.460 --> 00:00:44.020 OK, so let's unpack this. When we talk about 00:00:44.020 --> 00:00:46.380 Toni Morrison, who was born Chloe Ardelia Wofford 00:00:46.380 --> 00:00:48.979 in 1931, we're talking about a figure whose influence 00:00:48.979 --> 00:00:51.259 didn't just, you know, grow. It fundamentally 00:00:51.259 --> 00:00:53.859 reshaped the entire landscape of American fiction. 00:00:53.939 --> 00:00:55.859 She wasn't just a novelist. She was an essayist, 00:00:55.880 --> 00:00:57.960 a professor and a cultural critic who really 00:00:57.960 --> 00:01:00.299 forced the mainstream literary world to confront 00:01:00.299 --> 00:01:02.780 its own blind spots. Yeah. And her recognition 00:01:02.780 --> 00:01:05.780 is just staggering. It really speaks to the profound 00:01:05.780 --> 00:01:08.719 lasting power of her stories. She got the Nobel 00:01:08.719 --> 00:01:11.859 Prize in Literature in 1993, the Pulitzer Prize 00:01:11.859 --> 00:01:14.780 for Beloved in 88, and was honored with the Presidential 00:01:14.780 --> 00:01:17.299 Medal of Freedom in 2012. And that's not even 00:01:17.299 --> 00:01:19.859 all of it. Not even close. You can have the National 00:01:19.859 --> 00:01:22.329 Humanities Medal. Her induction into the National 00:01:22.329 --> 00:01:24.829 Women's Hall of Fame. Her achievements aren't 00:01:24.829 --> 00:01:26.750 just a list of awards. They really represent 00:01:26.750 --> 00:01:29.489 this seismic shift in whose stories are seen 00:01:29.489 --> 00:01:32.430 as worthy of a highest literary attention. Absolutely. 00:01:32.609 --> 00:01:34.469 And when you look at that whole body of work, 00:01:34.569 --> 00:01:38.430 you see this one unrelenting focus running through 00:01:38.430 --> 00:01:40.829 it all. It's about addressing the harsh, often 00:01:40.829 --> 00:01:43.510 psychological consequences of racism in the United 00:01:43.510 --> 00:01:46.189 States. And crucially, it's about centering the 00:01:46.189 --> 00:01:49.150 Black American experience as an entire self -contained 00:01:49.150 --> 00:01:52.519 universe. just, you know, a reaction to whiteness. 00:01:52.620 --> 00:01:55.159 And that's our mission today, to trace that path. 00:01:55.359 --> 00:01:57.579 We're going to explore how her deeply rooted 00:01:57.579 --> 00:02:00.519 upbringing in Lorain, Ohio, really informed her 00:02:00.519 --> 00:02:03.420 earliest themes. Then how she became this pivotal 00:02:03.420 --> 00:02:06.400 figure in publishing before her literary breakthrough 00:02:06.400 --> 00:02:09.599 and what that enduring philosophy was that, you 00:02:09.599 --> 00:02:11.680 know, allowed her to create such transcendent 00:02:11.680 --> 00:02:14.509 art. And we have some really fascinating nuggets 00:02:14.509 --> 00:02:16.770 from the source material to share. We're going 00:02:16.770 --> 00:02:19.330 to look at the deeply personal foundation of 00:02:19.330 --> 00:02:22.250 her defiance. I mean, how a traumatic childhood 00:02:22.250 --> 00:02:24.689 experience, a lynching that her father witnessed, 00:02:24.889 --> 00:02:27.509 shaped her whole approach to race. And we'll 00:02:27.509 --> 00:02:29.310 definitely dedicate some time to unpacking the 00:02:29.310 --> 00:02:32.069 story behind her famous critique of a U .S. president, 00:02:32.210 --> 00:02:34.669 a comment that became legendary but is so often 00:02:34.669 --> 00:02:37.849 stripped of its real political context. To really 00:02:37.849 --> 00:02:39.330 understand the literature, I think we have to 00:02:39.330 --> 00:02:41.750 start where the language began for her. Lorraine, 00:02:41.750 --> 00:02:44.090 Ohio. She was born Chloe Ardelia Wofford, the 00:02:44.090 --> 00:02:46.629 second of four kids, into a working class black 00:02:46.629 --> 00:02:48.949 family. And these foundations, they weren't just 00:02:48.949 --> 00:02:50.669 biographical details, were they? They were the 00:02:50.669 --> 00:02:53.189 essential fuel for her storytelling. Oh, precisely. 00:02:53.469 --> 00:02:57.389 Her parents. Rama and George Wofford were profoundly 00:02:57.389 --> 00:02:59.550 influential. They made sure the children were 00:02:59.550 --> 00:03:02.389 just immersed in this rich cultural inheritance. 00:03:02.509 --> 00:03:04.930 This wasn't just about, you know, getting by. 00:03:04.990 --> 00:03:07.250 It was about pride and preservation. They passed 00:03:07.250 --> 00:03:09.889 down African -American folktales, ghost stories, 00:03:10.030 --> 00:03:13.629 songs. These stories instilled a sense of heritage 00:03:13.629 --> 00:03:16.849 and language. The rhythm, the vernacular, the 00:03:16.849 --> 00:03:19.729 capacity for the supernatural, that became the 00:03:19.729 --> 00:03:21.969 bedrock of her fiction. What's so interesting, 00:03:22.009 --> 00:03:25.240 though, is the contrast. that essential cultural 00:03:25.240 --> 00:03:27.379 stream, her home was also intensely intellectual. 00:03:27.740 --> 00:03:29.900 We know her favorite childhood authors included 00:03:29.900 --> 00:03:32.539 people like Jane Austen and Leo Tolstoy. How 00:03:32.539 --> 00:03:34.840 do you square that, that formal European literary 00:03:34.840 --> 00:03:37.919 structure with the deeply vernacular oral tradition 00:03:37.919 --> 00:03:40.219 of African -American culture? Well, that tension, 00:03:40.259 --> 00:03:42.780 that blending is precisely where her genius lies. 00:03:43.039 --> 00:03:45.740 She mastered the high literary tradition, you 00:03:45.740 --> 00:03:47.939 know, the rigorous narrative structures of Austen 00:03:47.939 --> 00:03:50.979 and the epic sweep of Tolstoy. But she chose 00:03:50.979 --> 00:03:53.840 to fill that structure with the vernacular. with 00:03:53.840 --> 00:03:55.819 the community's voice, the folktales, and the 00:03:55.819 --> 00:03:58.099 history that was passed down orally. It's what 00:03:58.099 --> 00:04:00.439 allowed her to achieve both incredible psychological 00:04:00.439 --> 00:04:04.539 depth and real formal complexity. And speaking 00:04:04.539 --> 00:04:06.860 of those formative influences, the sources really 00:04:06.860 --> 00:04:09.840 emphasize this key defining trauma related to 00:04:09.840 --> 00:04:12.319 her father, George Wolford, who moved north from 00:04:12.319 --> 00:04:14.919 Georgia. This event seems to have shaped the 00:04:14.919 --> 00:04:17.019 family's entire perspective on the white world. 00:04:17.220 --> 00:04:19.709 The trauma was immense. George Wolford witnessed 00:04:19.709 --> 00:04:21.930 the lynching of two African -American businessmen 00:04:21.930 --> 00:04:24.050 who lived on his street when he was about 15 00:04:24.050 --> 00:04:27.009 years old. This was an experience of raw, existential 00:04:27.009 --> 00:04:29.449 racial violence. And he carried that wound with 00:04:29.449 --> 00:04:32.470 him. As Morrison later said, this was so profound 00:04:32.470 --> 00:04:35.370 that it manifested this intense protective hatred 00:04:35.370 --> 00:04:37.290 of white people. He just wouldn't allow them 00:04:37.290 --> 00:04:39.290 in the family home. That protective separation 00:04:39.290 --> 00:04:42.189 is so telling. It's such an active act of defiance, 00:04:42.189 --> 00:04:45.689 not just resignation. How do you think that specific 00:04:45.689 --> 00:04:48.629 environment, being raised by a father who fundamentally 00:04:48.629 --> 00:04:51.350 saw the white world as a source of, you know, 00:04:51.350 --> 00:04:54.649 existential danger, how did that later influence 00:04:54.649 --> 00:04:57.829 her philosophy of writing without the white days? 00:04:58.129 --> 00:05:00.029 I think it gave her the psychological freedom 00:05:00.029 --> 00:05:02.949 she needed to later reject it entirely. If the 00:05:02.949 --> 00:05:05.430 source of danger is externalized and, you know, 00:05:05.449 --> 00:05:08.790 walled off, then your internal world, the black 00:05:08.790 --> 00:05:11.189 community, is forced to become the center, the 00:05:11.189 --> 00:05:14.139 absolute reference point. For Morrison, the black 00:05:14.139 --> 00:05:16.959 experience was never secondary or reactive. It 00:05:16.959 --> 00:05:19.939 was the primary human experience. Her father's 00:05:19.939 --> 00:05:22.379 stance, which was born of so much pain, really 00:05:22.379 --> 00:05:24.399 laid the groundwork for her literary philosophy. 00:05:24.699 --> 00:05:26.839 The family also showed this incredible resilience. 00:05:26.839 --> 00:05:28.740 I'm thinking of that almost unbelievable story 00:05:28.740 --> 00:05:30.860 from when she was only two years old. Yes, the 00:05:30.860 --> 00:05:32.980 story she described as a lesson in keeping your 00:05:32.980 --> 00:05:36.600 integrity against bizarre forms of evil. When 00:05:36.600 --> 00:05:39.120 her parents couldn't pay the rent, the landlord... 00:05:39.259 --> 00:05:42.019 in this just monumental act of crudeness, set 00:05:42.019 --> 00:05:43.759 fire to their house while they were still inside. 00:05:44.019 --> 00:05:46.920 And their response as a family was to laugh at 00:05:46.920 --> 00:05:49.959 him. That laughter wasn't mockery. It was an 00:05:49.959 --> 00:05:52.399 act of refusal to be diminished by his cruelty. 00:05:52.680 --> 00:05:55.060 It was a declaration that their spirit was more 00:05:55.060 --> 00:05:57.980 powerful than his destructive act. It's a key 00:05:57.980 --> 00:06:00.500 insight into the resilience that you see in all 00:06:00.500 --> 00:06:02.180 their fiction. And we should probably note the 00:06:02.180 --> 00:06:04.600 origin of her name. She was born Chloe Ardelia 00:06:04.600 --> 00:06:06.920 Wofford, but at age 12, she became Catholic. 00:06:07.139 --> 00:06:09.639 She took the baptismal name Anthony, which then 00:06:09.639 --> 00:06:12.540 got shortened to her public nickname, Tony. Right. 00:06:12.600 --> 00:06:15.560 And after that foundational home life, she pursued 00:06:15.560 --> 00:06:19.399 a really Syrian academic path. In 1949, she enrolled 00:06:19.399 --> 00:06:21.860 at Howard University. This was a very deliberate 00:06:21.860 --> 00:06:24.860 choice to seek out a community of fellow black 00:06:24.860 --> 00:06:27.699 intellectuals. But ironically, it was at Howard 00:06:27.699 --> 00:06:30.180 that she first encountered the blatant, systematic 00:06:30.180 --> 00:06:33.220 segregation of the Deep South, racially segregated 00:06:33.220 --> 00:06:35.939 restaurants and buses, which was a huge difference 00:06:35.939 --> 00:06:37.980 from her more integrated upbringing in Ohio. 00:06:38.509 --> 00:06:40.769 she studied drama at howard and as part of the 00:06:40.769 --> 00:06:42.449 howard players she traveled through the deep 00:06:42.449 --> 00:06:43.910 south that must have been a really eye -opening 00:06:43.910 --> 00:06:46.829 experience a crucial exposure to the racial codes 00:06:46.829 --> 00:06:50.069 that define so much of america and then she continued 00:06:50.069 --> 00:06:52.350 her graduate work at cornell getting her m .a 00:06:52.350 --> 00:06:56.649 in 1955 and her thesis is so revealing virginia 00:06:56.649 --> 00:06:58.629 wolfe's and william faulkner's treatment of the 00:06:58.629 --> 00:07:01.430 alienated this shows her early engagement with 00:07:01.430 --> 00:07:03.850 the modern literary masters and this profound 00:07:03.850 --> 00:07:06.709 theme of alienation a feeling she would later 00:07:06.709 --> 00:07:09.689 locate specifically within race and American 00:07:09.689 --> 00:07:12.389 history. So after teaching for a while, her personal 00:07:12.389 --> 00:07:14.610 life shifted pretty dramatically. She married 00:07:14.610 --> 00:07:16.949 Harold Morrison, a Jamaican architect, had two 00:07:16.949 --> 00:07:19.970 sons, but they divorced in 1964. She was actually 00:07:19.970 --> 00:07:21.829 pregnant with her second son at the time. And 00:07:21.829 --> 00:07:24.589 this period, divorce and single motherhood, it 00:07:24.589 --> 00:07:26.350 prompted this pivotal turn in her professional 00:07:26.350 --> 00:07:29.139 life, not into writing, but into editing. And 00:07:29.139 --> 00:07:31.620 this is such a crucial and often overlooked stage 00:07:31.620 --> 00:07:34.699 of her career. After a job in Syracuse, she transferred 00:07:34.699 --> 00:07:36.860 to the main Random House office in New York City, 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:39.160 and this is where she became a real power broker. 00:07:39.759 --> 00:07:42.660 In the late 1960s, Toni Morrison became Random 00:07:42.660 --> 00:07:45.180 House's first black woman senior editor in the 00:07:45.180 --> 00:07:47.290 fiction department. What's so fascinating here 00:07:47.290 --> 00:07:49.769 is that she had gained this institutional authority 00:07:49.769 --> 00:07:52.470 inside the mainstream publishing world before 00:07:52.470 --> 00:07:55.089 she got famous as a writer. And she used that 00:07:55.089 --> 00:07:57.949 power to actively build the modern black literary 00:07:57.949 --> 00:08:00.949 canon, validating and promoting voices that had 00:08:00.949 --> 00:08:03.550 been historically marginalized. Exactly. She 00:08:03.550 --> 00:08:05.569 understood that power wasn't just about writing. 00:08:05.730 --> 00:08:07.870 It was about gatekeeping. It was about access. 00:08:08.310 --> 00:08:11.269 She championed an entire generation of black 00:08:11.269 --> 00:08:14.050 writers, including Tony Cade Bombera, the activist 00:08:14.050 --> 00:08:17.709 Angela Davis. Huey Newton, Gail Jones. She didn't 00:08:17.709 --> 00:08:19.870 shy away from controversial or politically charged 00:08:19.870 --> 00:08:23.029 voices. She saw them as essential. She even worked 00:08:23.029 --> 00:08:26.230 on Muhammad Ali's 1975 autobiography, The Greatest. 00:08:26.310 --> 00:08:28.810 She was basically a cultural curator, bringing 00:08:28.810 --> 00:08:31.110 essential and neglected history to light. And 00:08:31.110 --> 00:08:33.429 this is perfectly shown by her major publishing 00:08:33.429 --> 00:08:36.809 achievement from that time, The Black Book. The 00:08:36.809 --> 00:08:39.230 Black Book was this widely praised anthology 00:08:39.230 --> 00:08:42.070 compiled by Morrison that documented black life 00:08:42.070 --> 00:08:44.590 in the U .S. from slavery through the 1920s. 00:08:44.590 --> 00:08:47.409 It used photographs, essays, documents. Random 00:08:47.409 --> 00:08:49.529 House had been, you know, a bit uncertain about 00:08:49.529 --> 00:08:51.529 it at first. I can imagine. But its reception 00:08:51.529 --> 00:08:54.710 was ecstatic. It's a remarkable piece of preservation. 00:08:54.970 --> 00:08:57.149 And it was during the compilation of this very 00:08:57.149 --> 00:08:59.889 book that she stumbled upon the real -life story 00:08:59.889 --> 00:09:02.289 of Margaret Garner, the enslaved woman who... 00:09:02.289 --> 00:09:04.730 Like the elder child. Yes. So her work as an 00:09:04.730 --> 00:09:07.889 editor, as a curator, it directly fed the inspiration 00:09:07.889 --> 00:09:11.110 for her most celebrated novel years later. The 00:09:11.110 --> 00:09:13.649 institutional role prepared her for the artistic 00:09:13.649 --> 00:09:16.590 one. It's hard to overstate how influential she 00:09:16.590 --> 00:09:18.789 was as an editor before she ever became a famous 00:09:18.789 --> 00:09:20.610 author. She was already shaping the literary 00:09:20.610 --> 00:09:23.429 world. And her own transition to novelists came 00:09:23.429 --> 00:09:25.769 after she started writing in an informal writers 00:09:25.769 --> 00:09:28.049 group while she was teaching at Howard. That 00:09:28.049 --> 00:09:30.470 small group was the safe space where her first 00:09:30.470 --> 00:09:34.509 novel, The Bluest Eye, was born in 1970. It started 00:09:34.509 --> 00:09:37.129 as a short story about a black girl, Pakola Breedlove, 00:09:37.309 --> 00:09:40.389 who internalized racism so deeply that she just 00:09:40.389 --> 00:09:43.440 longed for blue eyes. The novel is a searing 00:09:43.440 --> 00:09:45.759 look at how racial aesthetic standards can destroy 00:09:45.759 --> 00:09:48.419 self -worth from within the community. And the 00:09:48.419 --> 00:09:51.460 context of its creation is legendary. It shows 00:09:51.460 --> 00:09:54.159 her sheer discipline. She famously got up every 00:09:54.159 --> 00:09:56.299 morning at 4 a .m. to write while raising two 00:09:56.299 --> 00:09:59.059 young children by herself. Is that commitment 00:09:59.059 --> 00:10:01.580 reflected anywhere in the themes of the novel 00:10:01.580 --> 00:10:03.840 itself? Oh, absolutely. That early morning discipline 00:10:03.840 --> 00:10:07.360 reflects the novel's thematic core. The difficulty 00:10:07.360 --> 00:10:10.139 of carving out a space for self -creation and 00:10:10.139 --> 00:10:12.600 dignity in a world that is constantly trying 00:10:12.600 --> 00:10:15.340 to diminish you. The very act of writing The 00:10:15.340 --> 00:10:18.159 Bluest Eye was an act of repossession, mirroring 00:10:18.159 --> 00:10:19.980 the theme of the black community struggling to 00:10:19.980 --> 00:10:21.899 claim its own internal beauty. And it was published 00:10:21.899 --> 00:10:24.320 when she was 39. The critical praise was immediate 00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:26.500 that the commercial success was a little slower 00:10:26.500 --> 00:10:28.879 at first. Correct. The New York Times praised 00:10:28.879 --> 00:10:32.059 her precise prose. But initial sales were pretty 00:10:32.059 --> 00:10:35.029 modest. The big shift came when colleges and 00:10:35.029 --> 00:10:36.769 universities started adopting The Bluest Eye 00:10:36.769 --> 00:10:39.509 for their new black studies departments. So this 00:10:39.509 --> 00:10:42.389 institutional adoption, driven by the very cultural 00:10:42.389 --> 00:10:45.210 movement she was championing as an editor, cemented 00:10:45.210 --> 00:10:48.350 the book's importance. Her next book, Sula, which 00:10:48.350 --> 00:10:50.169 focused on the complex friendship between two 00:10:50.169 --> 00:10:52.590 black women, was quickly nominated for the National 00:10:52.590 --> 00:10:55.139 Book Award. But the novel that truly launched 00:10:55.139 --> 00:10:57.139 her into the national consciousness, the one 00:10:57.139 --> 00:10:59.360 that really established her, was Song of Solomon 00:10:59.360 --> 00:11:02.559 in 1977. Song of Solomon is just massive, both 00:11:02.559 --> 00:11:05.320 in its scope and its influence. It follows the 00:11:05.320 --> 00:11:07.580 main character, Macon Milkman, dead the third, 00:11:07.740 --> 00:11:10.120 as he undertakes this journey to discover his 00:11:10.120 --> 00:11:14.120 heritage. It weaves together realism, myth, folk 00:11:14.120 --> 00:11:16.980 tradition. The style incorporates what we now 00:11:16.980 --> 00:11:20.019 call magical realism. like the myth of the flying 00:11:20.019 --> 00:11:23.440 Africans, to explore themes of identity and escape. 00:11:23.720 --> 00:11:26.279 And its historical significance is just impossible 00:11:26.279 --> 00:11:28.720 to overlook. It was the first novel by a black 00:11:28.720 --> 00:11:31.159 writer to be chosen as a main selection of the 00:11:31.159 --> 00:11:32.820 Book of the Month Club since Richard Wright's 00:11:32.820 --> 00:11:35.740 Native Son. Which was way back in 1940. In 1940. 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:39.399 That 37 -year gap just underscores how monumental 00:11:39.399 --> 00:11:42.080 this achievement was. Native Son was groundbreaking, 00:11:42.399 --> 00:11:45.179 but Song of Solomon defined a new path. a literary 00:11:45.179 --> 00:11:47.279 style that embraced cultural myth and lyrical 00:11:47.279 --> 00:11:49.700 prose. It won the National Book Critics Circle 00:11:49.700 --> 00:11:52.419 Award, and that made her a literary star. And 00:11:52.419 --> 00:11:55.899 then came 1987 and the publication of Beloved, 00:11:55.899 --> 00:11:58.460 which for so many people is the crowning achievement 00:11:58.460 --> 00:12:01.100 of her whole career. And we mentioned the inspiration 00:12:01.100 --> 00:12:03.059 for this came directly from her editorial work 00:12:03.059 --> 00:12:05.240 on The Black Book. Yes, from the true story of 00:12:05.240 --> 00:12:08.220 Margaret Garner, an enslaved woman who, after 00:12:08.220 --> 00:12:10.500 escaping, killed her two -year -old daughter 00:12:10.500 --> 00:12:13.559 to prevent the child's return to slavery. Morrison 00:12:13.559 --> 00:12:15.759 took this horrific historical act and transformed 00:12:15.759 --> 00:12:18.559 it into this complex, psychological, supernatural 00:12:18.559 --> 00:12:21.559 story. The plot imagines the dead baby returning 00:12:21.559 --> 00:12:24.159 as a ghost, named Beloved, to haunt the mother, 00:12:24.279 --> 00:12:26.940 Seath, and her family. The narrative structure 00:12:26.940 --> 00:12:29.200 of Beloved is, well, it's famously fragmented. 00:12:29.220 --> 00:12:31.659 It refuses a simple, linear telling of the story. 00:12:31.980 --> 00:12:34.480 How did that deliberate fragmentation serve the 00:12:34.480 --> 00:12:37.519 themes of trauma and memory? Well, trauma doesn't 00:12:37.519 --> 00:12:39.750 operate in a straight line, does it? It exists 00:12:39.750 --> 00:12:43.230 in constant flashes and repetitions. By fragmenting 00:12:43.230 --> 00:12:46.110 the timeline, Morrison forces the reader to experience 00:12:46.110 --> 00:12:49.110 the persistence of the past. The ghost, beloved, 00:12:49.330 --> 00:12:51.269 isn't just a horror trope. She's the physical 00:12:51.269 --> 00:12:53.929 embodiment of unacknowledged, unmourned history. 00:12:54.389 --> 00:12:57.870 The novel's central question is, how do you deal 00:12:57.870 --> 00:13:01.049 with a past so horrific it's unspeakable? And 00:13:01.049 --> 00:13:04.450 the answer, structurally, is by forcing the community, 00:13:04.649 --> 00:13:07.370 and you, the reader, to piece the story together. 00:13:07.740 --> 00:13:10.039 Peace by Painful Peace. The critical reception 00:13:10.039 --> 00:13:13.200 was immediate and overwhelmingly positive. It 00:13:13.200 --> 00:13:16.139 was a bestseller for 25 weeks. And yet, despite 00:13:16.139 --> 00:13:18.440 all this, the novel initially failed to win the 00:13:18.440 --> 00:13:21.100 major awards, which led to a very public and 00:13:21.100 --> 00:13:24.259 highly charged literary controversy. It did. 00:13:24.480 --> 00:13:26.820 Beloved was shockingly overlooked by both the 00:13:26.820 --> 00:13:28.980 National Book Award and the National Book Critics 00:13:28.980 --> 00:13:31.799 Circle Award that year. And this omission sparked 00:13:31.799 --> 00:13:34.480 as profound outrage among her peers, who felt 00:13:34.480 --> 00:13:36.059 that the establishment was still unwilling to 00:13:36.059 --> 00:13:38.340 recognize the full scope of genius when it came 00:13:38.340 --> 00:13:39.870 from. a black woman writing about the central 00:13:39.870 --> 00:13:42.149 trauma of American history. And this is where 00:13:42.149 --> 00:13:44.750 the power of collective cultural advocacy came 00:13:44.750 --> 00:13:48.710 into play. 48 prominent black critics and writers, 00:13:48.929 --> 00:13:51.929 including Maya Angelou, published a public protest 00:13:51.929 --> 00:13:54.549 statement in The New York Times. What was the 00:13:54.549 --> 00:13:57.289 underlying message of that protest? It was an 00:13:57.289 --> 00:13:59.370 assertion of cultural authority. It wasn't just 00:13:59.370 --> 00:14:01.090 about winning an award. It was about defining 00:14:01.090 --> 00:14:04.779 value. The statement essentially told the overwhelmingly 00:14:04.779 --> 00:14:07.860 white literary establishment, you are missing 00:14:07.860 --> 00:14:10.620 the most important voice of our time. Your system 00:14:10.620 --> 00:14:13.139 of validation is flawed. Wow. And it worked. 00:14:13.360 --> 00:14:15.759 The sources show that Beloved won the Pulitzer 00:14:15.759 --> 00:14:18.659 Prize for fiction two months later, cementing 00:14:18.659 --> 00:14:20.659 its place in the canon. It's also really important 00:14:20.659 --> 00:14:23.080 to see Beloved not just as a standalone masterpiece, 00:14:23.279 --> 00:14:25.740 but as the beginning of a larger literary project. 00:14:26.019 --> 00:14:28.620 It was the first in a trilogy. This trilogy concept 00:14:28.620 --> 00:14:32.029 is a key insight into her whole method. She said 00:14:32.029 --> 00:14:34.149 they were linked by the search for the beloved, 00:14:34.250 --> 00:14:36.669 the part of the self that is you and loves you 00:14:36.669 --> 00:14:40.289 and is always there for you. Jazz, the second 00:14:40.289 --> 00:14:42.929 book, tries to recover that identity through 00:14:42.929 --> 00:14:45.269 the rhythm of improvisation set in the Harlem 00:14:45.269 --> 00:14:48.350 Renaissance. And Paradise, the final book, moves 00:14:48.350 --> 00:14:50.769 to a communal scale, focusing on an all -black 00:14:50.769 --> 00:14:53.330 town in Oklahoma and exploring the failures of 00:14:53.330 --> 00:14:55.980 utopianism. And during this same incredibly productive 00:14:55.980 --> 00:14:58.799 period, she also released a piece of nonfiction 00:14:58.799 --> 00:15:01.379 that has been just profoundly influential on 00:15:01.379 --> 00:15:03.779 how literature is taught in universities. That 00:15:03.779 --> 00:15:06.779 would be Playing in the Dark, Whiteness and the 00:15:06.779 --> 00:15:09.980 Literary Imagination from 1992. It's a collection 00:15:09.980 --> 00:15:12.200 of essays examining the Africanist presence in 00:15:12.200 --> 00:15:14.340 classic American literature by white authors 00:15:14.340 --> 00:15:16.899 like Poe, Hawthorne, Melville. It's one of her 00:15:16.899 --> 00:15:19.259 most frequently assigned texts on college campuses. 00:15:19.480 --> 00:15:22.259 A true watershed moment. So how does she define 00:15:22.259 --> 00:15:24.659 that Africanist presence and why was it so revolutionary 00:15:24.659 --> 00:15:27.299 to point it out? She argued that this presence, 00:15:27.480 --> 00:15:29.940 the black or African figure, was consistently 00:15:29.940 --> 00:15:33.139 used as a structural necessity, this silent dark 00:15:33.139 --> 00:15:36.000 shadow that allowed white authors to define their 00:15:36.000 --> 00:15:38.919 own concepts of freedom and innocence. So like 00:15:38.919 --> 00:15:42.659 Jim and Huckleberry Finn. Exactly. His status 00:15:42.659 --> 00:15:45.340 as a non -person is what allows Huck to have 00:15:45.340 --> 00:15:48.299 his moral journey. Morrison argued that criticism 00:15:48.299 --> 00:15:51.220 had been too polite or too fearful to notice 00:15:51.220 --> 00:15:54.200 this disrupting darkness that fundamentally underpinned 00:15:54.200 --> 00:15:56.759 the white American story. She forced critics 00:15:56.759 --> 00:15:58.860 to confront the fact that American identity was 00:15:58.860 --> 00:16:00.899 constructed in opposition to the black figure. 00:16:01.019 --> 00:16:03.259 It just fundamentally shifted the gaze. And then 00:16:03.259 --> 00:16:06.460 in 1993 came the ultimate validation of her life's 00:16:06.460 --> 00:16:09.419 work, the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was 00:16:09.419 --> 00:16:12.039 the first black woman of any nationality to win. 00:16:12.440 --> 00:16:14.720 The Nobel Committee praised her novels for being 00:16:14.720 --> 00:16:17.279 characterized by visionary force and poetic import, 00:16:17.519 --> 00:16:20.600 giving life to an essential aspect of American 00:16:20.600 --> 00:16:23.919 reality. It was global recognition that her work 00:16:23.919 --> 00:16:26.360 wasn't on the periphery. It was central to understanding 00:16:26.360 --> 00:16:29.039 the modern condition. And in her acceptance speech, 00:16:29.100 --> 00:16:31.440 she left us with that incredibly memorable line, 00:16:31.679 --> 00:16:35.259 we die, that may be the meaning of life, but 00:16:35.259 --> 00:16:38.200 we do language. that may be the measure of our 00:16:38.200 --> 00:16:41.139 lives. It just encapsulates her belief in the 00:16:41.139 --> 00:16:44.259 enduring, regenerative power of narrative. Language 00:16:44.259 --> 00:16:46.220 is the tool for building and preserving culture. 00:16:46.620 --> 00:16:48.879 Her Nobel lecture itself is a beautiful metaphor, 00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:52.059 a story about an old, blind Black woman approached 00:16:52.059 --> 00:16:54.240 by young people who demand literature for their 00:16:54.240 --> 00:16:56.759 lives. And her command to them was not to read 00:16:56.759 --> 00:17:01.029 the past, but to create the future. In the later 00:17:01.029 --> 00:17:03.570 stages of her career, Morrison really solidified 00:17:03.570 --> 00:17:05.950 her role as a public intellectual. She was wielding 00:17:05.950 --> 00:17:07.970 influence through, you know, both the rigorous 00:17:07.970 --> 00:17:10.990 world of academia and the broad reach of mass 00:17:10.990 --> 00:17:13.690 media. Her academic career was just exceptional. 00:17:13.849 --> 00:17:15.970 She held the prestigious Robert F. Goheen Chair 00:17:15.970 --> 00:17:19.069 in the Humanities at Princeton from 1989 until 00:17:19.069 --> 00:17:22.109 she retired in 2006. And this gave her an institutional 00:17:22.109 --> 00:17:24.230 platform to influence the next generation of 00:17:24.230 --> 00:17:26.420 thinkers and artists. It's during her Princeton 00:17:26.420 --> 00:17:28.660 years that she made that very clear statement 00:17:28.660 --> 00:17:31.480 on the artist's responsibility, famously telling 00:17:31.480 --> 00:17:33.660 her creative writing students, I don't want to 00:17:33.660 --> 00:17:36.079 hear about your little life, okay. And that quote 00:17:36.079 --> 00:17:38.660 is so often misunderstood as just a dismissal 00:17:38.660 --> 00:17:41.740 of memoir, but it's much deeper. It's a philosophical 00:17:41.740 --> 00:17:45.359 statement about the responsibility of art. She 00:17:45.359 --> 00:17:47.859 was demanding that her students go beyond mere 00:17:47.859 --> 00:17:50.599 personal anecdote and tap into something universal, 00:17:50.880 --> 00:17:54.109 something invented. Her own refusal to ever write 00:17:54.109 --> 00:17:56.710 an autobiography confirms this. She also had 00:17:56.710 --> 00:17:58.970 a huge impact on Princeton's creative structure, 00:17:59.230 --> 00:18:01.730 developing the Princeton Atelier. The Atelier 00:18:01.730 --> 00:18:04.329 was a crucial, cross -disciplinary program she 00:18:04.329 --> 00:18:07.009 conceived. The whole goal was to bring students 00:18:07.009 --> 00:18:09.410 together with professional artists to produce 00:18:09.410 --> 00:18:12.950 public, collaborative works. It emphasized process 00:18:12.950 --> 00:18:16.210 and creation. Her impact was later honored when 00:18:16.210 --> 00:18:18.529 Morrison Hall at Princeton was dedicated to her 00:18:18.529 --> 00:18:21.630 in 2017. OK, now let's talk about her foray into 00:18:21.630 --> 00:18:24.069 mass media, specifically the film adaptation 00:18:24.069 --> 00:18:27.309 of Beloved in 1998, which was co -produced by 00:18:27.309 --> 00:18:30.750 and starred Oprah Winfrey. Oprah spent 10 years 00:18:30.750 --> 00:18:32.509 bringing that book to the screen, which just 00:18:32.509 --> 00:18:34.869 shows her deep commitment to Morrison's work. 00:18:35.009 --> 00:18:38.549 The film's reception was. Well, it was complicated. 00:18:38.730 --> 00:18:41.089 It was a commercial flop at the box office. A 00:18:41.089 --> 00:18:42.910 lot of publications chalked it up to audiences 00:18:42.910 --> 00:18:45.769 just being unwilling to endure nearly three hours 00:18:45.769 --> 00:18:48.809 of a cerebral film dealing with murder, rape, 00:18:48.910 --> 00:18:52.069 slavery, and supernatural themes. It was difficult 00:18:52.069 --> 00:18:54.509 material. But critics who understood her work 00:18:54.509 --> 00:18:57.059 defended the structure. I know Roger Ebert, for 00:18:57.059 --> 00:18:59.319 example, noted that the film's nonlinear structure 00:18:59.319 --> 00:19:02.160 was an intentional echo of the novel. Yes, it 00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:04.220 was used to explore the deeper issues of generational 00:19:04.220 --> 00:19:07.619 trauma, not just to provide a simple story. But 00:19:07.619 --> 00:19:10.339 regardless of the Thurm's box office, Oprah Winfrey 00:19:10.339 --> 00:19:12.400 proved to be the single most potent commercial 00:19:12.400 --> 00:19:14.799 engine for Morrison's work through the power 00:19:14.799 --> 00:19:17.420 of her book club. This became known as the Oprah 00:19:17.420 --> 00:19:20.160 Effect. This is a truly remarkable case study 00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:22.740 in how mass media can elevate serious literature. 00:19:23.339 --> 00:19:26.319 Starting with Song of Solomon in 1996, Oprah 00:19:26.319 --> 00:19:29.240 selected four of Morrison's novels. It exposed 00:19:29.240 --> 00:19:31.500 her work to a massive audience that went way 00:19:31.500 --> 00:19:33.980 beyond academic and traditional literary circles. 00:19:34.299 --> 00:19:37.660 And the statistics are just stunning. The sales 00:19:37.660 --> 00:19:39.519 boost Morrison got from the Oprah selections 00:19:39.519 --> 00:19:42.420 surpassed the sales lift her work received from 00:19:42.420 --> 00:19:45.019 winning the Nobel Prize. Really? That's incredible. 00:19:45.319 --> 00:19:47.680 Yeah. To give you a concrete example, when Winfrey 00:19:47.680 --> 00:19:50.819 selected The Bluest Eye in 2000, it sold an additional 00:19:50.819 --> 00:19:54.619 800 ,000 paperback copies. copies. It just confirms 00:19:54.619 --> 00:19:57.119 her unique ability to speak across cultural divides 00:19:57.119 --> 00:20:00.140 to the intellectual elite and the mass reading 00:20:00.140 --> 00:20:02.940 public at the same time. Morrison herself called 00:20:02.940 --> 00:20:06.130 the book club a reading revolution. It affirmed 00:20:06.130 --> 00:20:08.349 her belief that serious, difficult literature 00:20:08.349 --> 00:20:10.609 could resonate deeply with a popular audience 00:20:10.609 --> 00:20:13.029 if it was just given a platform. In her later 00:20:13.029 --> 00:20:15.509 years, she also explored a lot of creative collaborations. 00:20:15.769 --> 00:20:18.309 She provided text for classical music scores. 00:20:18.549 --> 00:20:20.930 She collaborated on the song cycle Honey and 00:20:20.930 --> 00:20:23.940 Rue and Woman .Life .Song. And she went right 00:20:23.940 --> 00:20:26.019 back to the historical roots of Beloved when 00:20:26.019 --> 00:20:28.099 she wrote the libretto for the opera Margaret 00:20:28.099 --> 00:20:31.619 Garner in 2005. It just shows her deep, lasting 00:20:31.619 --> 00:20:34.259 commitment to that story. She transformed it 00:20:34.259 --> 00:20:37.740 across mediums, from historical document to novel 00:20:37.740 --> 00:20:41.299 to theatrical performance. In 2011, she also 00:20:41.299 --> 00:20:43.740 collaborated with director Peter Sellers on Desdemona, 00:20:43.900 --> 00:20:46.740 which was a powerful reexamination of Shakespeare's 00:20:46.740 --> 00:20:49.099 Othello, focusing on the relationship between 00:20:49.099 --> 00:20:52.140 Desdemona and her African nursemaid. Personally, 00:20:52.200 --> 00:20:54.579 though, this later period was marked by profound 00:20:54.579 --> 00:20:58.279 tragedy. Her younger son, Slade Kevin Morrison, 00:20:58.480 --> 00:21:00.420 with whom she had collaborated on several children's 00:21:00.420 --> 00:21:03.609 books, died of pancreatic cancer in 2010. It 00:21:03.609 --> 00:21:06.029 was an immense loss, one that briefly caused 00:21:06.029 --> 00:21:08.609 her to stop writing altogether. She later spoke 00:21:08.609 --> 00:21:10.849 very movingly about the difficulty of continuing, 00:21:10.990 --> 00:21:13.230 but she realized that Slade would have been profoundly 00:21:13.230 --> 00:21:15.490 disappointed if his death had caused her to abandon 00:21:15.490 --> 00:21:18.329 her art. She concluded he would want her to continue, 00:21:18.470 --> 00:21:21.470 so she finished Home in 2012, a story of a Korean 00:21:21.470 --> 00:21:24.170 War veteran grappling with trauma, and she dedicated 00:21:24.170 --> 00:21:27.069 it to Slade. And her 11th and final novel, God 00:21:27.069 --> 00:21:29.609 Help the Child, published in 2015, confirmed 00:21:29.609 --> 00:21:31.650 that her vision was still sharp and focused right 00:21:31.650 --> 00:21:35.349 until the end. Yes, it focuses on Bride, an executive 00:21:35.349 --> 00:21:38.089 who is traumatized by her mother for being dark 00:21:38.089 --> 00:21:40.509 -skinned, a theme that brings her career full 00:21:40.509 --> 00:21:43.130 circle, right back to the internalized racism 00:21:43.130 --> 00:21:46.059 she explored in The Bluest Guy. So moving beyond 00:21:46.059 --> 00:21:48.220 her narrative achievements and cultural influence, 00:21:48.339 --> 00:21:50.059 we need to really focus on the philosophical 00:21:50.059 --> 00:21:52.980 core of Toni Morrison's work because it's built 00:21:52.980 --> 00:21:55.259 on this radical sense of self -possession and 00:21:55.259 --> 00:21:57.640 literary defiance. This is where the deep dive 00:21:57.640 --> 00:22:00.180 analysis truly begins. And the centerpiece of 00:22:00.180 --> 00:22:03.819 this philosophy is her absolute unyielding commitment 00:22:03.819 --> 00:22:06.740 to writing without the white gaze. She made it 00:22:06.740 --> 00:22:08.819 her mission to ensure that the white gaze was 00:22:08.819 --> 00:22:11.400 not the dominant one in her books, meaning the 00:22:11.400 --> 00:22:13.619 narrative was never structured to explain black 00:22:13.619 --> 00:22:16.279 life to a white. readership. So how did that 00:22:16.279 --> 00:22:18.559 practice actually impact the structure and the 00:22:18.559 --> 00:22:20.859 language of her novels? If she was purposefully 00:22:20.859 --> 00:22:23.099 excluding the dominant cultural reference point, 00:22:23.200 --> 00:22:25.460 how did she stay so accessible and critically 00:22:25.460 --> 00:22:28.539 rigorous? Well she maintained rigor by focusing 00:22:28.539 --> 00:22:31.619 purely on the internal dynamics. When you remove 00:22:31.619 --> 00:22:34.240 the white gaze, you remove the need for exposition, 00:22:34.319 --> 00:22:36.980 for justification, for translation. She didn't 00:22:36.980 --> 00:22:38.599 know vernacular. She didn't explain cultural 00:22:38.599 --> 00:22:41.500 practices. She simply presented the African -American 00:22:41.500 --> 00:22:44.099 experience as the entire necessary universe. 00:22:44.680 --> 00:22:47.420 And this forces the reader, no matter their background, 00:22:47.660 --> 00:22:50.759 to enter her world on her terms. She once said 00:22:50.759 --> 00:22:53.420 about navigating the white male world, it wasn't 00:22:53.420 --> 00:22:55.220 even interesting. I was more interesting than 00:22:55.220 --> 00:22:57.539 they were. I knew more than they did. That's 00:22:57.539 --> 00:23:00.720 quite a statement. It is. And that internal confidence 00:23:00.720 --> 00:23:02.880 allowed her to write fiction that just required 00:23:02.880 --> 00:23:05.710 no external validation. She was also very explicit 00:23:05.710 --> 00:23:08.230 that she was writing to and for a specific primary 00:23:08.230 --> 00:23:11.230 audience, primarily black women. She said in 00:23:11.230 --> 00:23:14.309 a 1986 interview, we are writing to repossess, 00:23:14.309 --> 00:23:17.789 rename, reown. And that is a declaration of artistic 00:23:17.789 --> 00:23:20.609 sovereignty. Repossess the history stolen by 00:23:20.609 --> 00:23:23.430 slavery, rename the self and the community, and 00:23:23.430 --> 00:23:26.130 reown the narrative perspective. She accepted 00:23:26.130 --> 00:23:28.349 the labels black and female, arguing that they 00:23:28.349 --> 00:23:30.329 weren't restrictive but expansive, that they 00:23:30.329 --> 00:23:32.539 gave her a rich place to write from. Her views 00:23:32.539 --> 00:23:34.839 on feminism, however, were often more nuanced, 00:23:35.119 --> 00:23:37.059 which can sometimes be confusing for readers 00:23:37.059 --> 00:23:39.720 who are expecting a simple ideological alignment. 00:23:40.140 --> 00:23:43.180 She avoided identifying her work as purely feminist 00:23:43.180 --> 00:23:46.000 because she wanted to maintain open doors and 00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:49.220 avoid being boxed into closed positions or restrictive 00:23:49.220 --> 00:23:52.420 ideologies. While she strongly advocated for 00:23:52.420 --> 00:23:55.440 equitable access for women, she rejected limiting 00:23:55.440 --> 00:23:59.160 structures, criticizing both patriarchy and matriarchy 00:23:59.160 --> 00:24:02.130 as limiting forms of power. And this ties into 00:24:02.130 --> 00:24:04.849 the black feminist movement of the 1970s, which 00:24:04.849 --> 00:24:08.349 often adopted the term womanist. It does. She 00:24:08.349 --> 00:24:10.390 noted that black feminists often called themselves 00:24:10.390 --> 00:24:13.430 womanists, a term coined by Alice Walker. This 00:24:13.430 --> 00:24:15.450 reflected a historically different relationship 00:24:15.450 --> 00:24:17.930 with black men, where black women often felt 00:24:17.930 --> 00:24:20.230 compelled to shelter and protect them, knowing 00:24:20.230 --> 00:24:22.549 they were the ones most likely to be killed. 00:24:22.890 --> 00:24:25.170 by systemic violence. Their struggle was linked 00:24:25.170 --> 00:24:27.289 to the survival of the entire community. OK, 00:24:27.369 --> 00:24:28.930 let's tackle something that gets brought up all 00:24:28.930 --> 00:24:31.390 the time, but I think is it's almost always misunderstood. 00:24:31.809 --> 00:24:34.589 Her phrase calling Bill Clinton our first black 00:24:34.589 --> 00:24:37.509 president. This demands some serious unpacking. 00:24:37.529 --> 00:24:39.950 Oh, this is vital context. The phrase appeared 00:24:39.950 --> 00:24:42.809 in a 1998 New Yorker article during the height 00:24:42.809 --> 00:24:44.750 of the Whitewater investigation and the impeachment 00:24:44.750 --> 00:24:47.950 proceedings. She did not mean he was literally 00:24:47.950 --> 00:24:50.390 black. She meant he was being treated by the 00:24:50.390 --> 00:24:52.950 political system and the media like a black man. 00:24:53.089 --> 00:24:55.529 So the analogy was rooted in her deep critique 00:24:55.529 --> 00:24:59.289 of systemic criminalization. Exactly. She argued 00:24:59.289 --> 00:25:01.109 he was being treated like a black on the street, 00:25:01.230 --> 00:25:04.069 already guilty, already a perp, subjected to 00:25:04.069 --> 00:25:06.549 a level of scrutiny and assumed guilt that is 00:25:06.549 --> 00:25:09.250 structurally reserved for black men. She later 00:25:09.250 --> 00:25:12.069 clarified it was a critique of the system's overzealous, 00:25:12.190 --> 00:25:14.750 racially charged behavior toward him. It was 00:25:14.750 --> 00:25:17.240 a statement about structural. racism, not racial 00:25:17.240 --> 00:25:19.759 identity. And she maintained that sharp political 00:25:19.759 --> 00:25:22.519 focus in the post -Obama era. After endorsing 00:25:22.519 --> 00:25:25.220 Barack Obama in 2008, she later focused heavily 00:25:25.220 --> 00:25:27.079 on the continued lack of racial accountability 00:25:27.079 --> 00:25:30.500 in America. Her 2015 commentary on police violence 00:25:30.500 --> 00:25:33.440 set this extraordinarily high bar for judging 00:25:33.440 --> 00:25:36.059 when racial conflict would be over. She stated, 00:25:36.240 --> 00:25:39.220 I want to see a cop shoot a white, unarmed teenager 00:25:39.220 --> 00:25:41.859 in the back, and I want to see a white man convicted 00:25:41.859 --> 00:25:44.160 for raping a black woman. Then when you ask me, 00:25:44.200 --> 00:25:47.680 is it over? I will say yes. That quote is just 00:25:47.680 --> 00:25:50.799 a powerful, almost desperate call for true systemic 00:25:50.799 --> 00:25:53.799 inversion, a belief that equality will only be 00:25:53.799 --> 00:25:56.259 achieved when white individuals face the same 00:25:56.259 --> 00:25:58.980 presumption of guilt. And after the 2016 election, 00:25:59.259 --> 00:26:02.180 she wrote the piercing essay, Mourning for Whiteness. 00:26:02.700 --> 00:26:05.019 Her analysis was that white Americans had elected 00:26:05.019 --> 00:26:07.180 Donald Trump, whom she noted was endorsed by 00:26:07.180 --> 00:26:09.539 the Ku Klux Klan, not necessarily because they 00:26:09.539 --> 00:26:11.440 believed in his policies, but because they fundamentally 00:26:11.440 --> 00:26:13.980 feared losing their racial privileges. So in 00:26:13.980 --> 00:26:16.119 her view, the vote was an act of preserving white 00:26:16.119 --> 00:26:19.119 supremacy. Right. But her influence, it transcends 00:26:19.119 --> 00:26:21.559 political commentary and it's rooted in tangible 00:26:21.559 --> 00:26:24.519 memorialization and literary activism. Her birthday 00:26:24.519 --> 00:26:26.960 is Toni Morrison Day in Ohio. Her papers are 00:26:26.960 --> 00:26:29.099 at Princeton. But the most powerful piece of 00:26:29.099 --> 00:26:31.460 her enduring legacy might be the Bench by the 00:26:31.460 --> 00:26:34.440 Road project. This concept comes directly from 00:26:34.440 --> 00:26:38.519 a 1988 speech. Yes, she was lamenting the national 00:26:38.519 --> 00:26:41.180 refusal to memorialize the victims of slavery. 00:26:41.660 --> 00:26:44.220 She noted that while there are monuments to wars 00:26:44.220 --> 00:26:46.660 and generals, there's no small bench by the road. 00:26:47.210 --> 00:26:49.890 This phrase inspired the Toni Morrison Society 00:26:49.890 --> 00:26:52.849 to start installing physical memorial benches 00:26:52.849 --> 00:26:55.269 by the road at historically significant sites, 00:26:55.369 --> 00:26:58.130 like Sullivan's Isle in South Carolina, a major 00:26:58.130 --> 00:27:00.750 entry point for enslaved Africans. This project 00:27:00.750 --> 00:27:03.349 is the ultimate physical embodiment of her literary 00:27:03.349 --> 00:27:06.369 philosophy, an active, ongoing process of recognizing 00:27:06.369 --> 00:27:09.190 and reowning the world. A quote from her is also 00:27:09.190 --> 00:27:11.130 inscribed at the National Memorial for Peace 00:27:11.130 --> 00:27:14.230 and Justice in Montgomery. Zadie Smith, a writer 00:27:14.230 --> 00:27:16.210 who was heavily influenced by Morrison, captured 00:27:16.210 --> 00:27:18.890 the vast scope of her influence perfectly. She 00:27:18.890 --> 00:27:21.170 noted that Morrison, quote, rejected the very 00:27:21.170 --> 00:27:23.769 concept of the narrow door and claimed for herself 00:27:23.769 --> 00:27:25.789 the wide world. She didn't wait for permission. 00:27:25.970 --> 00:27:27.769 She just redefined the boundaries of what was 00:27:27.769 --> 00:27:30.609 possible. What an immense, world -altering life 00:27:30.609 --> 00:27:33.490 we've just traced. We've seen her arc from Chloe 00:27:33.490 --> 00:27:36.289 Wofford, the child of working -class Ohio grounded 00:27:36.289 --> 00:27:39.329 in resilience and folktales, to the crucial editor 00:27:39.329 --> 00:27:42.250 who used institutional authority to champion 00:27:42.250 --> 00:27:45.369 an entire generation of Black literary voices. 00:27:45.730 --> 00:27:48.250 And from there, she ascended to become an author 00:27:48.250 --> 00:27:50.529 who won the highest literary honor, the Nobel 00:27:50.529 --> 00:27:52.910 Prize, by writing what the New York Times Book 00:27:52.910 --> 00:27:55.549 Review rightly called the best work of American 00:27:55.549 --> 00:27:58.259 fiction published in the previous 25 years. years 00:27:58.259 --> 00:28:01.220 beloved her core strength and the reason her 00:28:01.220 --> 00:28:04.579 legacy is so vital was her absolute uncompromising 00:28:04.579 --> 00:28:07.259 decision to center the black experience as the 00:28:07.259 --> 00:28:10.720 complete entire universe of her fiction by rejecting 00:28:10.720 --> 00:28:13.359 the need to address the white gaze she expanded 00:28:13.359 --> 00:28:15.640 the literary world for everyone showing that 00:28:15.640 --> 00:28:18.759 true universality is found in profound specificity 00:28:18.759 --> 00:28:20.720 so what does this all mean if we connect this 00:28:20.720 --> 00:28:23.079 to the bigger picture Morrison's Nobel quote, 00:28:23.299 --> 00:28:25.519 we do language. That may be the measure of our 00:28:25.519 --> 00:28:28.579 lives. It encapsulates her life's work as a continuous 00:28:28.579 --> 00:28:31.359 act of creation and preservation. She used language 00:28:31.359 --> 00:28:33.900 to measure and define history, repossessing, 00:28:33.900 --> 00:28:36.599 renaming and reowning the past through story. 00:28:36.740 --> 00:28:39.440 And that commitment to language was also a caution. 00:28:39.779 --> 00:28:42.880 In her 1996 Jefferson lecture, she argued that 00:28:42.880 --> 00:28:46.369 time, it seems, has no future. She was cautioning 00:28:46.369 --> 00:28:48.950 against the misuse of history, how it can diminish 00:28:48.950 --> 00:28:51.549 future expectations by locking us into these 00:28:51.549 --> 00:28:54.529 past narratives of failure or limitation. We 00:28:54.529 --> 00:28:56.769 are deeply indebted to Toni Morrison for the 00:28:56.769 --> 00:28:59.410 immense, expansive space she created in literature. 00:28:59.789 --> 00:29:02.009 But the work of using language to measure life 00:29:02.009 --> 00:29:04.990 continues. And based on her warnings, we leave 00:29:04.990 --> 00:29:07.859 you with this final provocative thought. What 00:29:07.859 --> 00:29:09.859 story are you telling yourself about the past, 00:29:09.960 --> 00:29:12.119 your history, your family, your community that 00:29:12.119 --> 00:29:14.299 might be unintentionally limiting your expectations 00:29:14.299 --> 00:29:17.660 for the future? Go explore her work, find your 00:29:17.660 --> 00:29:19.759 own bench by the road, and think about the radical 00:29:19.759 --> 00:29:21.940 potential of the language you do. Thank you for 00:29:21.940 --> 00:29:23.559 joining us for the Deep Dive. We'll see you next 00:29:23.559 --> 00:29:23.700 time.