This past Thursday, I was able to attend the Toni Morrison Roundtable event. I was very surprised with the amount of people that were there, and I was even more surprised to see how passionate the speakers were about Toni Morrison. Previous to this event, I did not know much about Toni Morrison. I had only heard her name mentioned in my high school English classes, but I had never read anything from her. After listening to everyone speak about her, it made me want to look into some of her works and read them for myself. Her books seemed to have great messages, and the fact that the speakers were so passionate about it made me even more curious.
Although Toni Morrison was African-American, she was able to reach out and touch the hearts of all her readers, no matter what they looked like. For the black community, one speaker said that he was able to be conscious of his heritage and the society that he lived in. He also felt moved by Toni Morrison because he was able to relate to what she was writing about, even if it was a book based on women. It also helped him celebrate his race and appreciate the black community.
When Professor Savonick was speaking, I was very touched by her description of Morrison’s book Sula, and it made me interested in reading it. She spoke about how Toni Morrison was able to depict female friendship, and push that women should work together rather than working against each other. I thought that this message was very important, especially in today’s society where it seems like everyone is always compared to somebody. Prof. Savonick also said that Toni Morrison’s books described that romantic relationships are only one type of relationships you could have in your life, and how working together and forming different types of relationships with people are very important in a larger movement.
I am happy that I was able to go to this event with some friends, and learn about who Toni Morrison was and why she was so important. It was nice to see all these people come together to celebrate someone’s life in a special way, and I am definitely going to look into what Toni Morrison books would be good for me to read.
