A Brief Statement on Toni Morrison

We went to the National Portrait Gallery last summer to see the portraits of the Obamas. Those were beautiful, but this is the one that struck me most at the time and the one that stuck with me, for obvious reasons. Her presence there, then, and now, elevates us all.

"I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.'"--Toni Morrison