Sunday, April 7, 2019
Background on Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison, the author of Beloved, has had an incredible career as an author and an interesting life from which she draws inspiration for her books. After her father witnessed the lynching of two black businessmen, he moved to the racially integrated town of Lorain, Ohio, hoping to escape racism and find success. Growing up, Morrison's parent instilled in her a sense of heritage and identity through telling traditional African-American stories and singing songs. When she went to Howard University (seeking the wisdom of fellow African-American intellectuals), she encountered segregated restaurants and buses for the first time. She went on to develop a collection entitled Contemporary African Literature which included work by Chinua Achebe along with other Nigerian writers. These early works and experiences helped shape her interest in history and the horrors behind racism which ultimately led to the novel we are now reading.
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I think it is significant here that we pay close attention to the fact that Morrison's inspiration came from the oppression she experienced in a free country. She also experienced that which she needed to in order to write Beloved in a Midwestern or even, Northern state.The South, as we know, was the main place of segregation and hateful racism during Morrison's childhood and early adult life, so it validates for us, as Americans, that America wasn't free then regardless of the Emancipation Proclamation. Segregation was real, and African-Americans, a race whose ancestors had been enslaved and tortured, were given unfair 'equals' to whites. My grandmother told me that she remembers when the first African-American young woman came to attend her school in the late 50's. I've heard the story of how integration began and thankfully, continued. We are just a few generations removed from this horror, but thankfully, there are people and more specifically, authors, like Morrison who have stood up and gained justice with their words.
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