Black History

America Mourns the Passing of Toni Morrison, a ‘National Treasure’

Published

5 years ago

August 6, 2019

“We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.” Toni Morrison

For almost half a century, Toni Morrison has been known for wielding words like a weapon to awaken the sleeping conscience, sowing them as seeds to help the stunted grow and skillfully mixing them as a balm to help the wounded heal.

And though she may be gone, because of the words she left behind, she will never be silent.

Morrison, 88, died Monday night at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, publisher Alfred A. Knopf said.

Her family released this statement to the media: In a statement released by Princeton University, where she taught, the author’s family said that after a short illness, “our adored mother and grandmother, Toni Morrison, passed away peacefully last night surrounded by family and friends. She was an extremely devoted mother, grandmother, and aunt who reveled in being with her family and friends,” the statement said. “The consummate writer who treasured the written word, whether her own, her students or others, she read voraciously and was most at home when writing. Although her passing represents a tremendous loss, we are grateful she had a long, well lived life.”

On Tuesday, authors and artists, editors and historians as well as other luminaries pay tribute to the American author. They were joined by thousands of her readers on Facebook and Twitter who spoke of her lasting impact on their lives.

“In the beginning was the Word. Toni Morrison took the word and turned it into a Song of Solomon, Sula, Beloved, Mercy, Paradise, Love and more,” Oprah Winfrey tweeted. “She was a magician with language, who understood the Power of words. She used them to roil us, to wake us, to educate us and help us grapple with our deepest wounds and try to comprehend them. She was Empress-Supreme among writers. Long may her WORDS reign!”

Morrison, who was best known for her bestselling and Pulitzer Prize winning novel Beloved, has been a guide to others said Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr.

“For nearly half a century, we have been looking to Toni Morrison for guidance — to help us think, through literature, as we find our way through the world. With grace and wisdom, she respected, represented and rendered the beauty and complexity of the black experience,” Gates said, according to The New York Times.

Born Chloe Ardelia Wofford on February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio. She became a Catholic when she was 12 years-old and was baptized as Anthony. She then gained the nickname, Toni. An avid reader, Morrison was a fan of Jane Austen and Leo Tolstoy. She grew up listening to her parents telling traditional African American folktales and ghost stories.

Before she wrote her first novel, Morrison was an editor who sought and found new voices, diverse voices – bringing black literature into the mainstream. She became Random House’s first black woman senior editor in the fiction department.

Among the books she worked on was Contemporary African Literature, a compilation of works that included contributions from Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe and South African playwright Athol Fugard. She also fostered a new generation of African American authors before taking her place among them.

Still, one of her best sellers was “The Black Book,” an anthology of artifacts that documents black life in America from the time of slavery to the 1970s. It included slave auction notices, lynching photos, blackface advertisements and a clipping from an 1856 newspaper, according to the Los Angeles Times.

It told the story of Margaret Garner, a runaway. As she was about to be captured, Garner killed her three children, believing death was preferable to captivity.

Morrison wondered what could lead a mother to commit such a crime. She answered that question with her bestselling novel about the legacy of slavery, Beloved, according to the LA Times.

But it wasn’t her first work.

“Toni was already 39 when she published her first novel, and she knew what she was doing,” Robert Gottlieb at Knopf said, according to The New York Times. “One of the remarkable qualities of “The Bluest Eye” is its calm confidence, “Sula” was perfect in structure and tone — like a superb sonnet. “Song of Solomon” was an explosion of energy and daring. “Beloved” was simply a masterpiece. And so, it went.”

Gottlieb would go on to edit most of Morrison’s novels. She also wrote Tar Baby, Jazz, A Mercy, Home and God Help the Child.

She also wrote children’s literature with the younger of her two sons, Slade Morrison, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2010 when he was 45. They include: The Big Box, The Book of Mean People, Peeny Butter Fudge and Please, Louise.

Morrison obtained her Bachelors of Arts from Howard University in 1953 and Masters of Arts degree from Cornell University two years later. She taught English at Texas Southern University in Houston and then at Howard, inspiring others.

She became the first black woman of any nationality to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, which she obtained in 1993. And when Morrison was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, then-President Barack Obama said, “Toni Morrison’s prose brings us that kind of moral and emotional intensity that few writers ever attempt.”

After learning of her death, he shared a picture of her sitting in a chair in the White House, smiling as she looked up at him.

“Time is no match for Toni Morrison,” Obama said Tuesday on Facebook. “She sometimes toyed with it, warping and creasing it, bending it to her masterful will. In her life’s story, too, she treated time nontraditionally.

“Toni Morrison was a national treasure. Her writing was not just beautiful but meaningful – a challenge to our conscience and a call to greater empathy. She was as good a storyteller, as captivating, in person as she was on the page. And so even as Michelle and I mourn her loss and send our warmest sympathies to her family and friends, we know that her stories – that our stories- will always be with us, and with those who come after, and on and on, for all time.”

“What a gift to breathe the same air as her, if only for a while,” he tweeted.

Author Tayari Jones said Morrison, “is the greatest chronicler of the American experience that we have ever known,” according to The New York Times. “Now that she is gone and we are facing a moral dilemma greater than any that I have seen in my lifetime, her Nobel acceptance speech is as haunting and urgent as ever. In that speech, she tells the story of an old woman who is taunted by a pack of boys who hold a bird. She is blind, but is known to have second sight, and they challenge her to tell her if the bird is alive or dead. The old woman says simply, ‘The bird is in your hands.’ And this in many ways could be her parting message to us now.”

Black History

Coco Gauff Becomes the Youngest Flag Bearer in US Olympic History

Published

1 month ago

July 25, 2024

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During the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony, the female American flag bearer will be Coco Gauff, the 20-year-old tennis star. She will be the youngest flag bearer in American Olympic history. Basketball legend LeBron James has been selected as the male flag bearer.

Gauff said, “I was not expecting that.”

Delighted to be selected, Gauff admitted she has “no idea” what her assignment includes, adding, “I don’t know if there’s flag bearer-training I have to go to.”

James has been to the Olympics four times. He was part of U.S. teams that won bronze in 2004, gold at Beijing in 2008 and gold again in London in 2012.

But this will be his first time as the flag bearer.

He said, “It’s an absolute honor. I hope I continue to make my community proud and continue to make my family proud.”

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Black History

California Is the First State to Create A Public Alert for Missing Black Youth

Published

2 months ago

July 3, 2024

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It’s been 21 years since Cleashandria Hall disappeared from Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Her mother Laurell Hall says she dropped her 18-year-old daughter off at her after-school job and never saw her again. For years, Hall and her family have kept their loved ones name in the media by hosting vigils and events that remind the public of their steadfast hope for answers.

But the attention is unusual. More often than not, experts say Black people who go missing do not receive the coverage as whites.

In October 2023, the state of California passed legislation that alerts the public to the disappearance of young people. It’s called the Ebony Alert, and it hopes to change the narrative about Black youth who are missing but don’t receive the same media coverage as white youth.

“We feel it’s well beyond time that we dedicate something specifically to help bring these young women and girls back home because they’re missed and loved just as much as their counterparts are,” State Senator Steven Bradford said in an interview with NBC News.

The recent docuseries about a California woman who faked her disappearance garnered 3.6 million viewers on Hulu, making it the most popular docuseries ever on the streaming service– a distinction that adds more credibility to the ongoing conversation about the disparities in media coverage and public attention when Black Americans are missing.

Sherri Papini grabbed the spotlight in 2016 as authorities searched for her before she reappeared and years later admitted the hoax. The popularity of the docuseries has reignited the dismay Black families experience when their loved ones are missing.

According to the Black and Missing Foundation, Black Americans make up 40% of missing Americans but only 13% of the population.

Foundation Founder Natalie Wilson said, “There’s a need for an Ebony Alert because people of color are disappearing at an alarming rate, and typically their cases are under the radar when it comes to media coverage and getting law enforcement resources.”

The Ebony Alert is activated when local authorities request it because a Black youth is missing, and there is concern the youth has been targeted for trafficking, or foul play is suspected. The Ebony Alert uses electronic highway signs and encouraged radio, TV, and social media and other systems to spread information about the missing persons’ alert.

In 2022, California began the Feather Alert which publicizes the disappearance of Indigenous people.

Black History

First Black Manhattan District Attorney Wins Historic Felony Convictions Against Donald Trump

Published

3 months ago

May 31, 2024

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Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg led the investigation that resulted in the first felony conviction of a former United States President, Donald Trump. Bragg’s case centered on the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels, a porn actor who said she and Trump had sex in 2006. The trial involved charges that Trump falsified business records to cover up the payment to Daniels.

“While this defendant may be unlike any other in American history, we arrived at this trial and ultimately today at this verdict in the same manner as every other case that comes to the courtroom doors,” Bragg said during a press conference after the jury’s verdict was announced. “By following the facts and the law and doing so without fear or favor.”

Trump and his Republican supporters have accused Bragg of “weaponizing” the judicial system.

“This was a disgrace,” Trump said. “This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt as a rigged trial, a disgrace. The real verdict is going to be November 5^th by the people. And they know what happened here and everybody knows what happened here.”

Who is Alvin Bragg

In 2021, Bragg became the first African American elected as the District Attorney for New York County covering Manhattan. He graduated from Harvard Law School and has served as an Assistant Attorney General at the New York State Attorney General’s Office and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Bragg is a former member of the Board of Directors of the New York Urban League and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and a Sunday School teacher at his church.

Political Science professor, Sekou Franklin, said, “Bragg took a big risk bringing the case against former President Donald Trump. Undoubtedly, this risk is both personal and political. Despite this challenge, his willingness to prosecute Trump took great courage.”

Trump’s litany of indictments started when he left office in 2020 after losing the White House to President Joe Biden. Charges of Trump’s attempts to overthrow the 2020 election continue to generate investigations and outrage. African American prosecutors have led three of the most significant cases.

In Georgia, Trump was indicted, along with 18 of his allies, for attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis brought the charges; however, the case became overshadowed by controversy when Willis was accused of hiring Nathan Wade as the special prosecutor because she was in a romantic relationship with him. Judge Scott McAfee declined to disqualify Willis, a decision Trump and his team are challenging.

Earlier this year New York State Attorney General Letitia James handed Trump a defeat after a New York judge ordered him and his business trust to pay $453.5 million in penalties and interest as part of his civil fraud case. The judge ruled that Trump fraudulently inflated the value of his real estate holdings when applying for loans.

But the latest convictions on 34 felony counts against the former President known for his boundary-breaking is historic.

“Alvin Bragg represents the new wave of prosecutors who have strong ties to public impact and community lawyering,” said Franklin, a professor at Middle Tennessee State. “Many of these prosecutors were elected as a result of protests that targeted racialized violence by law enforcement.”

Trump has described James, Willis and Bragg as “racists” – a thinly veiled attempt to tap into a vein of ingrained racism in the nation. The Republican Party lamented the convictions, decrying the trial as a political attack and a “shameful” day in American history.

Democrats view the convictions as an opportunity to sharpen their arguments that Trump is unfit to lead the nation domestically or represent America globally.

Trump faces up to four years in prison. His sentencing is set for July 11 – days before the start of the Republican National Convention.