“Toni Morrison, Master Writer, 1931-2019.”
Her name, Toni Morrison, evokes something close to veneration for readers. Her book most rooted in the savagery of the U.S. South during slavery days gave names, faces, and voices to millions of nameless, faceless, and unheard African captives, especially women.
With grace and fierce intelligence, Morrison plumbed the very depths of American history to recreate now iconic characters as living, breathing beings in her novels. Morrison wrote many novels, but perhaps her masterwork was Beloved, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988.
In her novel, she had the community’s leading elder, Baby Shooks, tell the following about love to a gathering of men, women, and children:
“Here in this here place, we flesh, flesh that weeps, laughs, flesh dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don’t love your eyes. They just assume, pick them out, no more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it and all my people. They do not love your hands. Those, they only use, tie, bind, chop off, and leave empty. Love your hands. Love them. Raise them up and kiss them, touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face, because they don’t love that either. You gotta love it. Love your heart, for this is the prize.
Toni Morrison, born Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison on February 18th, 1931, writes so passionately, so deeply that tears escape my eyes when I read this dialogue of Baby Shooks. She was, for decades, a master writer.
Moreover, she was one hell of an editor, for she edited for Random House when she worked on Revolutionary Suicide by a man named Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party.
Tony Morrison—author of such books as Sula, 1973, The Bluest Eye, 1970, Song of Solomon, 1977, Tar Baby, 1981, Jazz, 1992, and Paradise, 1990, just to name a few—fter 88 summers, returns to her beloved ancestors.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle, Henry of prison radio.
![Prison Radio is sharing an abbreviated version of a press release covering recent racist incidents at SCI Rockview in PA and the organizing to demand accountability. We are reaching out to people incarcerated at Rockview as well as recently transferred folks, inviting them to call, in hopes of hearing commentaries from them.
Benner Township, PA.-
On November 24th, 2023, imprisoned people at SCI Rockview found two nooses hanging in the CO’s office, displayed visibly for many prisoners to see. When the prisoners asked the staff why the nooses were hung, they were told it was a joke.
By December 4th, prisoners filed a grievance to document what they saw, noting that the hanging of the nooses was “unethical, racially motivated, hateful, [a] deliberate debasement of black inmates" and “unsafe for inmates, staff, [and] the whole prison in general.” In the grievance, they demanded that Sgt. Mosser and CO Richard be fired and investigated for a hate crime, and for CO Kirchner to get therapy. Captain Andrews, the head of security, denied the grievance.
The sergeant and COs are still working in the prison to this day, with no repercussions...
As of March 10th, prisoners have reached out to Pennsylvania officials at the Dept. of Corrections in a letter campaign, sending 100 copies of the grievance. Copies of the letter also were mailed to Governor Shapiro, Senator Fetterman, Senator Street, and various advocacy groups. The demands for relief in the original grievance have now become the platform of demands for this campaign. About 20 of the 100 letters were withheld by the prison.
Activists on the outside are joining forces with prisoners to elevate their demands, flooding the phone lines of DOC offices, assisting with outreach to media, and circulating the stories of prisoners who have found unity in opposition to the facility's virulent institutional racism.
In any other workplace, hanging a noose would be grounds for immediate termination. However, Nicki Paul, the superintendent's assistant and "grievance coordinator" informed the public that they self-investigated their staff and found they did nothing wrong.
Read the full article at i
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