Toni Morrison Was Her Own Best Thing

Before anyone knew her name, she was Chloe from Lorain—small, Black, bookish. Through language, she became a giant—and in doing so, offered us new ways to be ourselves.

Photo by Bernard Gotfryd.

Once upon a time, there was a girl—small, Black, called Chloe—who learned to bend language like light, turning words into incantations and sentences into spells. Through word-work, she conjured entire worlds. And along the way, she transformed herself into a giant—one she named Toni Morrison.

The giant—teacher, editor, scholar, a…