University president reflects on time with Morrison
Being good friends with a prolific writer who you admire isn’t easy — especially if that writer is Toni Morrison.
In fact, it’s dangerous, recalled Prairie View A&M University President Ruth Simmons just days after it was announced Morrison had died at 88 on Aug. 5.
“In terms of art and absolute mastery, there’s no one I admire more today,” said Simmons, who befriended Morrison after she recruited the author to Princeton. But admiration doesn’t make for a healthy foundation for a friendship, she reasoned.
“The danger is you become a sycophant, and for me, that’s a disgusting notion.”
So when the opportunity came to work with the late literary giant during Simmons’ time as associate dean of faculty at Princeton, she decided she would not let her fandom blind her to the work that
needed to be done — or to Morrison’s flaws. She planned to differentiate herself from Morrison’s many admirers, and, instead, became Morrison’s critic — a “needler” who often told the author things she didn’t want to hear.
“It pleased me to be able to say to her, ‘No, ‘Beloved’ is not your greatest work, not by any stretch of the imagination,’” Simmons said with a touch of humor. “And it pleased me enormously to be able to tell her … that nothing would ever be better than ‘Song of Solomon’ in my view.”
And when Princeton eventually renamed a historic building after Morrison in 2017, it was Simmons who cut through the praise and reminded everyone they had renamed a building after someone who already had such a big ego.
“It was an annoyance to her, but it kept me with the feeling that I had an honest and genuine friendship,” she added, and somehow, Morrison — who Simmons described as a woman who “never tired of attention” and had little patience for those who didn’t adore her — allowed such criticism.
“I think she tolerated it because of the role I had in bringing her to university,” Simmons said, and little did either know that Morrison’s move to Princeton would be a stepping stone for both the author and their friendship.
A recruiting challenge
When Simmons and her colleagues at Princeton were looking for individuals to recruit, Morrison was at the top of the list.
“We thought her writing was so important and her talent was so great, and that she would be a magnificent addition to the Princeton faculty,” Simmons said.
But swaying Morrison would be a challenge.
When a search committee at Princeton reached out to Morrison in hopes she would apply for a position in the creative writing department, Morrison demurred, balking at the idea that she had to “apply” and fill out paperwork. She felt her reputation had already been made, Simmons said — but in academia, prospects of any prestige are required to apply or be nominated.
Still, Morrison would not budge, and the committee would not consider her without an application.
“I thought, ‘What a lot of bureaucratic nonsense this is!’” Simmons said.
Not wanting the author or Princeton to miss out on an opportunity, Simmons said she wrote up Morrison’s resume and turned in the necessary paperwork for the appointment, for which the author was later awarded.
Not everyone was a fan of bringing Morrison to Princeton, Simmons said, declining to mention names. Even Morrison took some convincing.
Simmons said she emphasized to Morrison that although she did think that Morrison was one of the greatest American writers, her work had not been rightfully acknowledged by the world and major institutions.
“The pitch I made was, ‘If you came to Princeton, that will be a ramification of your status as a writer, and after, your work will get a lot more attention,” Simmons said.
And it did.
Princeton’s recruitment of Morrison in 1989 opened new doors for the author, changing how major institutions saw her, and allowed her to make great contributions to the school, Simmons said.
Morrison helped Princeton recruit African American scholars like Cornel West. Many of these scholar recruits came to the university simply because Morrison was there, Simmons said.
In 1994, Morrison launched a project called “Princeton Atelier,” which would bring artists together to develop new materials with the participation of undergraduates. Simmons, using the resources that she had, assisted Morrison in building a program within her vision, and Morrison continued to teach and support fellow and aspiring writers, many who went on to have great success, Simmons said.
A budding friendship
All the while, Simmons and Morrison’s friendship grew.
They bonded over their desire to boost Princeton’s African American studies program and bring black history and culture to the forefront of America’s consciousness. They traveled, meeting with brilliant writers, artists and Morrison’s friends, many of whom they had hoped to recruit, like the late Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe.
“The benefit to me was really her extraordinary mind,” Simmons said, referring to Morrison as a prolific teacher and writer. “She taught so many people things that they wouldn’t otherwise apprehend.
“She had the most piercing analysis of current events. She had the capacity to understand people and so really, just appreciating that she had these insights that were so valuable. I learned a lot from her because she had a pithy way of expressing her views. Once she expressed them, that was it. The conversation wasn’t really necessary after she determined what she wanted to say.”
And shortly after Princeton announced that Morrison was on faculty, she received the Pulitzer Prize for “Beloved” in 1988, Simmons said, and then, to both Simmons and Morrison’s surprise, the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.
Simmons remembers waking up early that morning, learning that Morrison had won while watching the “Today” show.
“I was immediately annoyed,” Simmons said. “Not excited. It was (an) annoyance, because why didn’t she tell me herself ?”
Simmons called Morrison immediately and pushed her for answers.
“I said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ and she said ‘Tell you what?’ in a very annoyed tone,” Simmons said. Morrison insisted she hadn’t won. “I know that it’s not true because if I won the Nobel Prize, I’d be the first to know,” Simmons remembers her friend saying.
Later that day, the Nobel committee contacted Morrison, who was in disbelief, and a little resentful, that Simmons — and much of the rest of the world — had known before her.
“We laughed about that a good deal,” Simmons said.
If anything, that backand-forth was exemplary of Simmons and Morrison’s relationship — full of playful criticism and banter, but also loving support.
They had traditions of hosting parties for Morrison’s birthday with her closest friends (Simmons’ said she hosted Morrison’s last one but kept certain parts a secret. “She wanted to control the guest list. … so I didn’t tell her what I was doing,” Simmons said). They were often in the audience of each other’s major celebrations and events.
Simmons remembers Morrison being supportive when she became president of Smith College in 1995 and attending her inauguration when she became president of Brown University in 2001.
But as friends, they were also honest.
Morrison would pick at Simmons’ “bad choices” — among them were taking a job at historically black women’s university Spelman College in Atlanta, which had banned one of Morrison’s books from its reading list, and when Simmons missed her Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony in Sweden so that she could finish Princeton’s budgets.
“She just thought that was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard,” Simmons remembered, but
somehow they understood each other, often reacting to the world around them in similar ways. Both loathed servers’ informal pleasantries or common words like “hon” or “girl” in restaurants.
“She hated all that, and I hated it, too,” Simmons said. “… An older (African American) woman would never be happy with someone calling them ‘girl’ or ‘hon’ because during and after slavery, African American women were never accorded titles. They were always ‘girls’ or ‘gals.’ I completely understood it.”
A final visit
Just days before Morrison died, Simmons said she and her daughter visited the author at her home in Nyack, N.Y.
Though the day was full of laughter — “Toni continued to have a way of expressing things that just made you laugh uproariously,” Simmons said — it was also a surreal visit she’ll cherish forever.
It was a stormy afternoon with a downpour Simmons found unusual, and out of one of Morrison’s windows, she could see the storm moving down the nearby Hudson River. Simmons said it reminded her of the kind of scenes and imagery Morrison featured in her novels.
“I could well imagine the great symbolic value of the storm we saw coming, moving slowly down the river as the other side of the river was sunlit,” she said.
In their last conversations, the two talked about “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am,” a documentary about Morrison’s life. Simmons said Morrison was delighted to hear about the positive reviews she had heard. And they talked about Morrison Hall, the building Princeton named after her.
“I knew when I left her that it probably would not be long,” Simmons said, but she told her friend she’d be back.
And just moments before she left, Simmons said Morrison oddly told her something that has stuck out in her mind since:
“The world is filled with so many awful people that when you find somebody who is not awful, you really want to be around them.”