Oprah, Shonda Rhimes and more share moving stories about Toni Morrison's powerful legacy

Toni Morrison

Credit: Deborah Feingold/Corbis via Getty Images

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Oprah, Shonda Rhimes and more share moving stories about Toni Morrison's powerful legacy

By Hannah-Rose Yee

6 years ago

From Oprah to Shonda Rhimes, here are the most incredible stories about the power and legacy of the late author.

“We die,” Toni Morrison said in her 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech. “That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”

Words were the late author’s gift, language the meaning and measure of the life that she gave to so many through her work. In that Nobel Prize speech, which Morrison was awarded for her work on the Beloved trilogy, the author elucidated the importance of storytelling. “Word work is sublime, she thinks, because it is generative,” Morrison said. “It makes meaning that secures our difference, our human difference – the way in which we are like no other life.”

Morrison’s words have echoed around the internet over the past day as the world responds to the news of her death. The author was 88 and one of the most decorated and celebrated authors in the world. Throughout her career, which began when she penned her first novel at 39, she gave voice to the black experience, put into words the story of so many lives.

Here, Morrison’s fans, celebrity friends (and celebrity fans) share their stories about what Morrison meant to them: 


Oprah on Morrison’s strength and skill


Shonda Rhimes on learning from Morrison


Barack Obama on understanding Morrison’s words


Stacey Abrams on Morrison’s power


Kerry Washington on growing up with Morrison’s words


Author Roxane Gay on interviewing Morrison


Tracee Ellis Ross on the lessons she learnt from Morrison


Author Jodi Picoult on hearing Morrison speak


Writer Alanna Bennett on Morrison’s legacy


A fan remembers Morrison’s response to what gives her pleasure


A woman remembers meeting Morrison for the first time


Ally Carter remembers Morrison quietly putting a man in his place


Sarah Jackson recalls what it was like to hear about someone reading Toni Morrison for the first time


Anne Daniel recalls seeing Morrison on the campus at Princeton



Images: Deborah Feingold/Corbis via Getty Images

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