Toni Morrison biographical timeline

1931: Toni Morrison–Chloe Ardelia Wofford– is born in Lorain, Ohio, to George Wofford and Ramah Willis Wofford

1949: Wofford enrolls at Howard University

1953: Graduates from Howard University, receiving her B.A. in English

1955: Awarded a Master’s degree in English from Cornell University. She receives a teaching position at Texas Southern University in Houston

1957: After two years at Texas Southern University, Wofford joins the faculty at Howard University as an English instructor

1965:  Morrison gets first editorial job at LW Singer Publishing Company in Syracuse, New York

1967/68: Morrison moves to NYC to work as an editor for Random House Publishing.

1970: Morrison publishes her first novel, The Bluest Eye

1973: Sula is published. It is nominated for the National Book Award

1977: Song of Solomon is published. Receives the National Book Critics Circle Award.

1981: Tar Baby is published. Toni appeared on the cover of the March 30th issue of Newsweek magazine.

1983: Morrison leaves Random House after 15 years as an editor to become a full-time writer

1987: Beloved is published. When the book fails to win National Book Award, 48 black writers and literary critics publish a letter or protest in the New York Times Book Review

1988: Morrison is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved.

1989: Morrison accepts the Robert F. Goheen Chair in the Humanities at Princeton University

1992: Jazz is published

1993: Morrison awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

1997: Paradise is published.

1998:  Novel Beloved made into a major motion picture

2003: Love is published.

2008: A Mercy is published – her 9th novel

2012: Morrison Is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama

2012: Home is published

2015: God Help the Child is published

2019:  Source of Self Regard, collection of lectures and essays by Morrison, is published

2019: August 5, 2019 Morrison passes away