Poems by Nikki Giovanni, The Last Poets (you know, “Niggers Are Afraid of Revolution”), Angela Davis, Martin Luther King, Stokeley Carmichael, Jesse Jackson, Nina Simone’s “Four Women” , Miles Davis. … It was something that happened over a period of time. It was constant talking every night, every day, over a period of six months. Politics. Love. Love and politics.

“In the moments of darkness that were to come, I remembered his words. If someone like him could survive and overcome twenty-seven years in prison and become a symbol of love and freedom to our people—why couldn’t I endure this? What I was going through seemed like a small thing compared to what he had survived. Compared to all those who had died during South Africa’s struggle for independence and democracy.

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.

12. Boxing the Champ In

A different reporter asked Bernstein what he thought might be the implications of signing up a convicted felon, which Ali was at that point, for a book deal with such a high payout. Having anticipated the question, Bernstein pulled his pipe from his mouth, leaned across the table toward the microphone, and replied that the day publishers refused to publish controversial books would be a bad day for democracy. Random house was no stranger to controversial authors.

Morrison was attentive to every detail. She approved the back ad layout for the jacket, which was to have “a hairline of white around each halftone and a black border around that white hairline,” and she requested oval frames for the four snapshots above. While she was pleased with the manufacturing in general, she appealed to Silberman to help ensure she had some input in these matters in the future. She was similarly hard on the publicity team. She complained: “The Angela postcard 1) has no space for a message (on the left) 2) places the Geis credit improperly 3) needs a vertical line to separate the address are from the quote/message area— as a normal postcard. In the future, she told Selma Shapiro, she would like to see the layout and copy for publicity items.

Morrison sent galleys to all the major news outlets and to a range of writers asking them for comments. When she secured a quote from Jessica Mitford, the leftist author of the prison reform book Kind and Usual Punishment, she added an excerpt of it to the book’s back cover and to the appeal letter.