Toni Morrison: Writing Is a Dangerous Pursuit

The Nobel Prize-winning novelist talks art and activism with Ta-Nehisi Coates and Sonia Sanchez.

Toni Morrison
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Writing is dangerous—something Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison learned early in life.

When they were children, Morrison and her sister loved to write on sidewalks. One day, they saw a new word near their home and began to copy it out: F-U-C—. Suddenly, their frantic mother burst through the door and separated them. Morrison said, last week at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting's "Art and Social Activism" panel, "She never explained the word. We never knew what it was. But I knew that if I wrote—other people exploded."

I knew that if I wrote—other people exploded.

Aside from writing revered novels like Beloved, Sula, and Jazz, which explored racial violence, oppression within Black communities, and sacrifice, Morrison used her "explosive" quality to shake up the publishing industry as an editor at Random House in the '70s and '80s. In an industry that is still a staggering 79 percent white and a paltry 4 percent Black, Morrison had an uphill battle to climb in order to publish and nurture Black writers. Once, she was told at a sales conference that it wasn't possible to sell books written by and for Black people in the same stores that catered to predominantly white customers. Another time, when she was planning a book party in Harlem, a publicist asked her if they should have police on standby.

As a Black woman in the publishing industry, Morrison worked to get respect not only for her writers but also for herself. In a meeting with Muhammad Ali—whose first biography she edited—whenever she asked him a question, he would turn and respond to the closest man. After she crossed her arms over her chest and urged Ali to get up and acknowledge her—which he did—Morrison said that she never had any problems with him again.

Getty Images for the Stella Adler Studio of Acting

"If you want to go into writing, you will be a suspect," said poet and social activist Sonia Sanchez, who moderated the panel. Sanchez, Morrison, and Ta-Nehisi Coates had gathered to discuss how art and activism are inextricably linked to one another for the Black American writer. The United States has been shaken to its core in recent years by hate crimes and racialized violence, including the death of Michael Brown at the hand of a white police officer in Ferguson, and the Charleston massacre. There was much for the three artists to discuss regarding their personal artistic trajectories, and the strong strands of social activism within.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author of 2015 National Book Award winner Between the World and Me, admitted that he never had a choice when it came to writing. Whenever he misbehaved as a child, his mother would demand that he write essays in order to explain what he did wrong. For him, writing is a passion: "There weren't many other options. It brings me the most joy." Even if he made no money from writing, Coates said, he'd still continue to hone his craft.

Given the panel's topic, Sanchez was adamant that Coates discuss his widely read essay for The Atlantic, "The Case for Reparations." When Coates studied how segregated the suburbs of Chicago and Baltimore, his hometown, were, he began to research the economic disparities between Black and white people. Coates won the 2015 Stowe Prize for social justice writing partially thanks to this piece, which argues that because of discriminatory policies that robbed African-Americans of the same opportunities of white Americans, the wrong can only be made right through reparations.

The art of these Black American writers is inextricably linked with social activism because it comes from observing their respective communities and America at large. They believe that art can never be idle but must testify about the times in which it is created. Coates and Morrison agreed that massive inequalities remained in place in the States—from housing segregation to the disparities between the government's treatment of white drug addicts and Black drug addicts.

All of these structural barriers influence them to write—and through their writing, dismantle power. It's a crucial way of highlighting just how much change is needed, Coates said: "Getting people to think about housing, getting people to think about why these communities are constructed the way that they are…We are scared of the work. It's a lot of work…and we might not win. And yet we have to commit ourselves to the struggle, because there's nothing else besides struggle."

We have to commit ourselves to the struggle, because there's nothing else besides struggle.

After the conversation, Jacqueline Woodson, author of the award-winning Brown Girl Dreaming and the upcoming novel Another Brooklyn, awarded all three writers with the Marlon Brando Award for their excellence in the arts. But Morrison wasn't finished yet. She urged the audience to remember all the artists who have been rejected, imprisoned, tortured, or killed for writing words that threaten to disrupt the status quo. "It [writing] is a dangerous pursuit….But it's one of the most important things that human beings do." 

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