Toni Morrison was born Chloe Anthony Wofford to George and Rahmah Wofford in 1931. The second of four children, Morrison was raised in the small Ohio town of Lorain in a tight-knit black community. Morrison describes her father, a shipyard welder, as a racist. Having experienced virulent racism, he despised whites. Her mother, on the other hand, was an integrationist. Both of her parents and her larger community instilled in Morrison a strong sense of self-esteem and cultural identity.

Though she had no aspirations of being a writer in her youth, Morrison was always an avid reader and a precocious student. Her imagination was further nourished by the folk stories passed down from her parents and grandmother. She attended Lorain High School and went on to Howard University, a historically black college. There she studied English and drama and came to be known as Toni. In 1955 Morrison...