Opinion | Sandra Guzman: Toni Morrison was a freedom fighter who slayed with words
When the director of the film I helped produce said the word “rolling,” I remember looking up and seeing Morrison looking back at me, ready and open. I could ask her anything. Before me was one of the most brilliant intellects in the world, one of the freest and most unapologetically Black women on the planet ready for her close-up. The author, whose books gave me oxygen and who had been a friend in my head, was in the flesh.
Meeting Morrison in her 80s was divine — she was ready to share her story. I was free to ask her anything. She was generous and open, and so witty. When I touched issues that she was not ready to answer — which were none of my business, such as her divorce from the father of her two sons — she would say, “stop recording.” But then, she proceeded to share her story in private, outside of the cameras.
When we wrapped the film, she pointed to what I thought was a sculpture and asked me to get it for her. Holding the piece, iron, hard, cold and heavy, she explained it was an anklet that Black women house slaves were forced to wear. She handed it to me, letting me hold it, and said, “It’s light enough that you can do housework, but heavy enough that you can’t run away. I have two, one in the living room and one next to me on my night table.
Morrison asked us to never forget them, the millions of Black women around the world who were enslaved. That it was our duty to honor them, to remember them and, in my case, to write and make films about them.
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