Her presence will be forever re-
membered at Princeton University
and her voice continues to share
wisdom through a new docu-
mentary film entitled Toni Mor-
rison: The Pieces I Am by Timothy
Greenfield-Sanders, which began
screenings at select theaters over
the summer.
In the documentary, Toni Morri-
son examines her life, her works,
and the powerful themes she has
confronted throughout her literary
career. If you want to understand
what inspired her stories, hints
come from the personal experi-
ences of her family. The film be-
gins with Morrison remembering
how her grandfather would always
say he read the Bible completely
through and through, five times
from cover to cover. As she points
out, it was illegal during his lifetime
to read and it was illegal for white
people to teach black kids how
to read, so what her grandfather
was doing was a revolutionary act.
NJ STAGE - ISSUE 62
“That sense of being confrontation-
al permeated our house, although
I didn’t understand why so early,”
said Morrison. “Later on, I did.”
Her own father grew up with the
memory of watching two men get
lynched - a scene he witnessed as
a child. The experience led him to
never believe white people would
be human. Her mother, however,
judged people one at a time.
Morrison herself grew up in the
era of segregation. She thought
it was a waste of money to have
two versions of everything from
bathrooms to water fountains.
She laughed thinking about how
white children were still bathed
by black servants and how they
all ate the food they cooked. She
even experienced a form of seg-
regation at Howard University,
which was based on the darkness
of one’s skin.
It’s a cinematic joy, although a bit-
tersweet one, to be able to spend
two hours with Toni Morrison.
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