E True Hollywood Story

Toni Morrison was born February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio. Her born name was Chloe Wofford which she later changed to Toni Morrison. She was the second child of parents George Wofford and Ramah Willis Wofford. Her parents had moved to Ohio from the south because of the racism they encountered there. In Ohio Morrison went to an integrated school where at one point she was the only African American in her class as well as the only kid that could read. After graduating with honors she attended Howard University. There she majored in English. It was because of a repertory company that Morrison visited the south. There she saw racism that her parents had dealt with. She later attended Cornell University were she received her masters degree.

After graduating Morrison taught introductory English at Texas Southern University. There African American history was more celebrated than she had seen before. This is where she saw that she could incorporate her culture in her work. When she returned to Howard University to teach,in 1957 it was a time of civil rights movements. It was there that she met her husband Harold Morrison. After having her first kid in 1961 Morrison joined a writer's group. One day Morrison decided to write a short story to bring to the group, instead of bring in someone else's work. This story was based off of a girl she had known when she was younger who wished for blue eyes. After divorcing her husband Morrison got a job as an editor and began working on her own novels. In 1970 she published The Bluest Eye, which she had developed from the short story she brought to her writer's group. She later published works such as Sula and the Song of Solomon.In 1993 Morrison won the Nobel Prize in literature. This was a remarkable achievement because she was the first female, African American to win the award.

It is clear that that Morrison's interest in her heritage came from her parents. They had always educated their children on African American culture. Morrison's novels were inspired by certain qualities of African American culture she had either observed or learned about. For example her first novel The Bluest Eye was based off a child she had known. Her novel Beloved was inspired by a slave named Margaret Garner that she had read about.