Toni Morrison's Lorain

Description

Toni Morrison’s “Rediscovering Black History” provides important context for understanding how African Americans persevered under segregation, and found meaning and satisfaction in the work they created, despite discrimination and marginalization by the white majority during Morrison’s younger years. Rather than allowing their labor and craftsmanship to be defined solely by the prejudices of others, Black artisans and workers invested pride, care, and personal value in what they produced. Their creative and practical labor thus became a source of dignity and fulfillment in its own right.

This legacy can also be seen in Lorain today. Organizations such as Main Street Lorain support culturally diverse small businesses and local institutions while contributing to the city’s revitalization and the preservation of its history. Some of the people who own, operate, or participate in these businesses and institutions are African American residents whose families form part of the longer history of Black life in Lorain that also shaped Morrison’s experience of the city.

This essay was originally published in the New York Times Magazine, on August 11, 1974. 

"I remember when black people refused to let the enemy- 'the man'- get to them, down there, in that private place where we lived and where we exercised skill and power, be it over biscuit dough or quilts, railroads or levees, architecture or baskets." 

"[T]he relationship between a person and his work was private, because if they- the white people- killed that pride of accomplishment, little of anything else would be left. So the quilts were carefully done, since the development of a pattern was challenging, demanding and rewarding. The wrought-iron gates and balconies were made beautiful to behold. The plaster work was exquisitely decorated. Even the dolls made for the white children who were our charges were done with special care and love for the thing itself. It didn't make any difference who owned the work, the worker knew he owned it, because he had done it. Whether by sheer strength, delicacy or ingenuity, when we laid our hands to work, we did it well." 

"...in this long trek through three hundred years of black life, there was joy, which is what I mostly remember...Our bodies in motion at public dances that pulled black people from as far as a hundred miles away. A glorious freedom of movement in which rites of puberty were acted out on a dance floor to the sound of brass, strings, and ivory. For dancing was relief and communication, control of the body and its letting go. We danced in public and alone, on the porches and in the yards. Wherever the sound found us. And, of course, there was the music. Not only the 'race records' and the live bands but the shout songs and the remnants of slave jubilees."