ENG 102

The luminaries of contemporary African American letters - poets, novelists, critics and actors - gathered in October, 2012 to pay tribute to Toni Morrison, read from her writings and share what it has meant to their lives and work.

In Black and White is the first video series devoted to the life and work of contemporary African American authors. It introduces students and general readers to six of America's most talented and challenging writers: Charles Johnson, Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, Alice Walker, John Edgar Wideman and August Wilson.

This program introduces one of the greatest contemporary American authors: winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, "a literary Moses stripping away the idols of whiteness and blackness that have prevented blacks from knowing themselves." Readings from Beloved and Jazz show how she returns to the pain of slavery and segregation to restore wholeness to the black psyche. "The past," Morrison says, "is more infinite than the future... It’s avoiding it, deceiving ourselves about it, that paralyzes growth."

On August 5, 2019, novelist Toni Morrison, the first Black woman awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, passed away at the age of 88. Her 11 novels were translated into dozens of languages, and she is considered a towering figure in African American literature. For almost 50 years, Morrison shed light on what had been kept quiet, hidden, in U.S. history. She put words to a silenced Black history.

In this compelling program, world-renowned author Toni Morrison candidly answers questions regarding how she became a writer, the pain of empathizing with her characters, the sensual nature of her novels, and how it felt to win the Nobel Prize. In addition, she pulls no punches discussing how she first became aware of her racial otherness, how writing for a black audience has kept her work from becoming derivative, the societal uses of racism, and how racism leads to barbarism when individuals abdicate their humanity.