The grief in Dr. Eddie S. Glaude Jr.’s voice was unmistakable as he spoke of author and educator Toni Morrison, one of America’s towering literary figures whose words leaped from pages into hearts, minds and souls of readers around the world.
Morrison, who died Monday evening at the age of 88, now belongs to the ages. Left to mourn her are not just family and friends, but innumerable lovers of literature, scholars and teachers captivated and influenced by her soaring prose, her way with words and her brilliant cultural consciousness.
Her passing, for many, has had the same effect as her writing – it could leave you at a loss for words.
“The power of her intellect, the way in which she marshalled language and her overall – how can I put it?” asked Glaude, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, where Morrison taught from 1989 to 2006 and chaired the humanities department.
“She was unabashedly Black,” he declared. “And not in an ideological sense. She just occupied her space without qualification. And it was a beautiful example.”
Morrison was born Chloe Ardelia Wofford in Lorain, Ohio. An avid reader and lover of the arts at an early age, she became involved in the drama club, debate team and yearbook staff in high school. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English at Howard University and a master of arts degree in English at Cornell University.
Before writing novels that eventually made her a world-renowned author, Morrison worked as an editor at Random House for nearly two decades. She was the fiction department’s first Black woman senior editor and opened doors for emerging Black writers such as Angela Davis and Gayl Jones.
