Editing Toni Morrison (section)

== Early years ==
Toni Morrison was born Chloe Ardelia Wofford,<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Duvall|first=John N.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iHbeC1I_aWUC&pg=PA38|title=The Identifying Fictions of Toni Morrison: Modernist Authenticity and Postmodern Blackness|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2000|isbn=978-0312234027|page=38|quote=After all the published biographical information on Morrison agrees that her full name is Chloe Anthony Wofford, so that the adoption of 'Toni' as a substitute for 'Chloe' still honors her given name, if somewhat obliquely. Morrison's middle name, however, was not Anthony; her birth certificate indicates her full name as Chloe Ardelia Wofford, which reveals that Ramah and George Wofford named their daughter for her maternal grandmother, Ardelia Willis.}}</ref> the second of four children from a working-class, Black family, in [[Lorain, Ohio]], to Ramah (née Willis) and George Wofford.<ref name="wofford">{{cite news| last = Dreifus |first=Claudia |author-link=Claudia Dreifus |title=Chloe Wofford Talks about Toni Morrison|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=September 11, 1994 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/11/magazine/chloe-wofford-talks-about-toni-morrison.html|access-date=March 24, 2025}}</ref> Her mother was born in [[Greenville, Alabama]], and moved north with her family as a child. She was a homemaker and a devout member of the [[African Methodist Episcopal Church]].<ref name=":7">{{cite magazine |url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/10/27/ghosts-in-the-house |title=Ghosts in the House: How Toni Morrison Fostered a Generation of Black Writers |first=Hilton|last=Als |author-link=Hilton Als|ref=none|date=October 27, 2003 |magazine=[[The New Yorker]]|access-date=May 1, 2017}}</ref> George Wofford grew up in [[Cartersville, Georgia]]. When Wofford was about 15 years old, a group of white people [[Lynching in the United States|lynched]] two African-American businessmen who lived on his street. Morrison later said: "He never told us that he'd seen bodies. But he had seen them. And that was too traumatic, I think, for him."<ref name=Ghansah>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/magazine/the-radical-vision-of-toni-morrison.html |title=The Radical Vision of Toni Morrison |last=Ghansah|first=Rachel Kaadzi|author-link=Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah|date=April 8, 2015|magazine=[[The New York Times Magazine]]|access-date=April 29, 2017}}</ref> Soon after the lynching, George Wofford moved to the racially integrated town of Lorain, Ohio, in the hope of escaping racism and securing gainful employment in Ohio's burgeoning industrial economy. He worked odd jobs and as a welder for [[U.S. Steel]]. In a 2015 interview Morrison said that her father, traumatized by his experiences of racism, hated whites so much he would not let them in the house.<ref>{{cite news |title=Toni Morrison Remembers |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b062mp6k |date=Summer 2015|access-date=January 24, 2021|publisher=[[BBC]]}}</ref>

When Morrison was about two years old, her family's landlord set fire to the house in which they lived, while they were home, because her parents could not afford to pay rent. Her family responded to what she called this "bizarre form of evil" by laughing at the landlord rather than falling into despair. Morrison later said her family's response demonstrated how to keep your integrity and claim your own life in the face of acts of such "monumental crudeness".<ref name=":3">{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1993/10/08/the-laureatess-life-song/10d3b79b-52f2-4685-a6dd-c57f7dde08d2/ |title=The Laureates's Life Song|last=Streitfeld|first=David|author-link=David Streitfeld|date=October 8, 1993 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|access-date=April 29, 2017}}</ref>

Morrison's parents instilled in her a sense of heritage and language through telling traditional African-American folktales, ghost stories, and singing songs.<ref name=":7" /><ref name="Mote">{{cite book |title=Contemporary Popular Writers |publisher=St. James Press |year=1997 |isbn=978-1558622166 |editor-last=Mote |editor-first=Dave |location=Detroit |chapter=Toni Morrison}}</ref> She read frequently as a child; among her favorite authors were [[Jane Austen]] and [[Leo Tolstoy]].<ref name="nola">{{cite news| last = Larson| first = Susan |title=Awaiting Toni Morrison |work=The Times-Picayune |date=April 11, 2007 |url=http://www.nola.com/living/t-p/index.ssf?/base/living-8/1176268522309540.xml&coll=1 |publisher=NOLA.com |access-date=June 11, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930181626/http://www.nola.com/living/t-p/index.ssf?%2Fbase%2Fliving-8%2F1176268522309540.xml&coll=1 |archive-date = September 30, 2007 }}</ref>

Morrison became a [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] at the age of 12<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://lithub.com/on-the-paradoxes-of-toni-morrisons-catholicism/|title=On the Paradoxes of Toni Morrison's Catholicism|first=Nick|last=Ripatrazone|website=Literary Hub|date=March 2, 2020|access-date=February 28, 2022}}</ref> and took the [[Christian name|baptismal name]] Anthony (after [[Anthony of Padua]]), which led to her nickname, Toni.<ref name="Brockes">{{cite news |title=Toni Morrison: 'I want to feel what I feel. Even if it's not happiness' |author-link=Emma Brockes |first=Emma |last=Brockes |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/apr/13/toni-morrison-home-son-love |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |date=April 13, 2012 |access-date=February 14, 2013}}</ref> Attending [[Lorain High School]], she was on the debate team, the yearbook staff, and in the drama club.<ref name=":7" />