Toni at Random— Dana A. Williams

1. “We’re All We Got”

Everything about Toni Morrison’s distinguished editorship pointed to her understanding of that one truth— that any attempt to revolutionize the publishing industry to be more inclusive of Black authors and Black stories would require an army of people united by a belief in literary and artistic excellence in Black culture. While once-vibrant sociopolitical ties dissolved into gradual disconnections and the loss of support networks through neglect and design translated into a loss of the kind of collective identity that had formed in the late 1960s, Morrison never lost sight of the belief that Black people could be everything they needed.

And so the Africans speak. The book’s impulse to get on with the real discovery of some truth by allowing peoples to speak for themselves is emblematic of Morrison’s editorship in many ways. She and the editors made no effort to limit the texts to those written to a white audience or to those that could be easily understood in a Western context. Rather, the tales, fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction alike were informed by social, political, and cultural experiences and traditions that challenged the primacy of Western ideals as universal. Ideally, this approach would prompt readers to understand that there were multiple worldviews, that Western ways of thinking and being were one among many.

Her editorial choices reflected her belief that books could provoke thought and foster critical discourse. Her assumption, one that would persist through the years, was that a good editor could collaborate with the author to produce a book that revealed a writer’s individual achievement alongside the book’s more general efforts to shift perspectives. The nonfiction books she edited during these years foreshadowed her interest in publishing books that engage directly with social and cultural reorientations. Far from a disparate hodgepodge, those early books helped craft an editorial identity that positioned her as a serious professional, as one with a gift for helping authors on her list render complex and uncomfortable topics more legible, and as one committed to using her role as a tool for social change.

Morrison took risks publishing voices some deemed marginal and, by extension, challenged Random House to remain true to its legacy of prioritizing artistry and quality over market trends around the same time publishing conglomerates had begun to drift toward privileging commercial viability above all else.

For Morrison, the exploration of the ordinariness of Black women, individually and as a group, was a venture into the extraordinary. The need for acid and outrage was indisputable, yes; but universalizing Black women’s discrete experiences was uniquely appealing and necessary.

What Morrison’s decision to publish the book revealed was her willingness if not determination to rewrite history more honestly in the tradition of the Black Studies movement, which challenged dominant narratives that mischaracterized, marginalized, and erased African and African diaspora contributions to world history. The look beyond the domestic and accepted histories of civilization held a unique appeal to Morrison. The interplay between culture-shifting books, literary books, and commercially successful ones exemplified her innovative approach to editing.