Toni Morrison's references Baldwin's passing in an interview for Marxism Today
April 1988: 33
Toni Morrison's references Baldwin's passing in an interview for Marxism Today.
Interviewer: Recently over IOO black writers and activists including June Jordan and Angela Davis organised a public tribute to you and your work. How did you feel about this publicity?
Toni Morrison: Oh my dear, it was the best thing. When June and I were on tv together, it was easily the most significant thing that happened to me in my entire writing life. The press's reaction, however, was very strange. They de-ided that the tribute wasabout prizes, the Pulitzer Prize. They thought that I was upset about not winning. It wasn't about that. It was very positive. The real point is that to June and Angela and all those people, there was something about what they were saying about honouring our own at a time when Jimmy (James Baldwin) had just died. It was a re-assertion which scared people.If you write in a culture, from it, for it, within it, the culture says, you are valuable to us. It's such an unprecedented thing. It's some-thing no artist ever expects ever to hear, it's obituary information. That praise-song, that crowning from the community who has said, 'well done' is thrilling and that is the prize. No-one can give me that except them. In fact that tribute destabilised the whole prize-giving process. The establishment cannot enfranchise you if you are taking the power away from them. That's what they were upset about.