Do we like Toni Morrison?
Our score: 9 out of 10. Her record shows her writing and speaking against racism and censorship, with no harmful words or acts found, though the sources I could open were thin on her private conduct.
Toni Morrison is one of the giants of American writing, and she died in 2019. Her novels, including Beloved and The Bluest Eye, are still the ones teachers fight over and readers argue about. A Harvard scholar's April 2026 book looks at all eleven of her novels, plus her plays, criticism and poetry.
The recent news is about her books rather than any scandal. Nothing new has turned up on her lately beyond tributes and fresh scholarship. Namwali Serpell's On Morrison argues that the more Morrison was celebrated, the less closely her work was read. Serpell says the conversation keeps drifting to her biography and icon status instead of the words on the page.
The nearest thing to a Morrison stoush is the 1998 New Yorker essay calling Bill Clinton America's first Black president. She wrote it during the impeachment fight, and in 2008 she said readers had misunderstood her. She was describing how he was treated, as “already guilty, already a perp,” not praising him. Critics still argued about the phrase, and she later expressed some regret over how it landed.
On the harm test, the record is clean. She endorsed Barack Obama in 2008, saying it wasn't “because it might make me proud” or because of race. She called Newt Gingrich's “food-stamp president” label racially coded. After the 2016 election she wrote that white voters had embraced “the shame and fear sowed by Donald Trump.” That's a strong political read, and plenty will agree or disagree with it, but it is aimed at fear and scapegoating, not at any group of people.
Her books keep landing in the crosshairs of book banners. In early 2022 the Wentzville district in Missouri pulled The Bluest Eye from its school libraries over its sexual content and violence. The ACLU of Missouri sued on behalf of two students, and within weeks the board accepted a review committee's recommendation to keep the novel. The ACLU's director welcomed that but noted six other books were still banned, including titles by and about people of colour and LGBTQ people.
On the good stuff, Obama gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, and in 2019 he called her “a national treasure.” Ohio is also running a year-long celebration of her. Serpell notes Morrison preferred honours that get people reading, like a room of books in a Lorain library, over statues or plaques.