Toni Morrison’s Commencement Speech at Wellesley College
"You need not settle for any defining category." Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, one of the world's most celebrated American novelists, has died at the age of 88. Listen to her words of wisdom to graduates at Wellesley College in her 2004 commencement speech.
American novelist, essayist, editor, teacher and national treasure
"You need not settle for any defining category. You don't have to be merely a tax payer, or a red state, or a blue state, or a consumer, or a minority, or a majority. Of course, you're general but you're also specific. Of course, you're general, A citizen and a person. And the person you are is like nobody else on the planet. Nobody has the exact memory that you have. What is now known is not all what you are capable of knowing. You are your own stories - You are your own stories and therefore free to imagine and experience what it means to be human without wealth, what it feels like to be human without domination over others, without reckless arrogance, without fear of others unlike you. Without rotating, rehearsing, and reinventing the hatreds you learned in the sandbox. And although you don't have complete control over the narrative, no author does, I can tell you, you can nevertheless create it."
Toni Morrison was an American novelist, essayist, editor, teacher and professor emeritus at Princeton University. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed Song of Solomon (1977) brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1988, she won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award for Beloved (1987).
Born and raised in Lorain, Ohio, Morrison graduated from Howard University in 1953 and went to graduate school at Cornell University. Later, while teaching English at Howard University, she married Harold Morrison. They had two children and divorced in 1964. In the late 1960s, she became the first black female editor in fiction at Random House in New York City. In the 1970s and 1980s she developed her own reputation as an author, and her perhaps most celebrated work, Beloved, was made into a movie in 1998 by Oprah Winfrey.
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84 comments
Joshua M.
09/07/2019 18:05Anyway RIP a great speech
Martha M.
08/30/2019 21:05Rest in peace great woman
Neal I.
08/30/2019 20:25RIP, your works will continue to impact many generations
Vicky A.
08/30/2019 13:36Rest in the bosom of the almighty God Amen
Kori T.
08/30/2019 08:06Rare people create rare novels to be blossoms of the world art history. The mindful that she was and her memory is the brightest times of conceiving and enjoying her wisdom and proud to be words for ever inspiring human being in this planet, not only in the history of the United States of America alone.
Pinocho P.
08/30/2019 01:22Great lady!💕🙏👏
Engr Z.
08/29/2019 20:03All things are correct but there is one question!!? She know her real God whose make perfect ????
Martha G.
08/29/2019 16:37Wow she's so right 😂 love her speech ❤️
Neelam S.
08/29/2019 13:30Great
Fred J.
08/29/2019 00:10Great post
Jackie H.
08/28/2019 19:44Wonderful
Osman T.
08/28/2019 15:06RIP, Amen !
Lalon F.
08/28/2019 12:24A fantastic and famous statement.
Hamza A.
08/28/2019 04:58https://youtu.be/H47Tq4_HeAg
Siteri S.
08/27/2019 21:04Absolutely Amen.
Arthus V.
08/27/2019 00:55You are the great mentor i salute u
Habib H.
08/26/2019 12:48R i p
Myint M.
08/26/2019 02:02RIP
Cynthia B.
08/25/2019 22:15Well said.
Mary E.
08/25/2019 15:21Beautiful words.RIP