Sponsored by:Borden Park Neighborhood Association

YOUTUBE

In honor of Black History Month, the Borden Park Neighborhood Association celebrates the 1993 Nobel Lecture of Toni Morrison. Preeminent American novelist and peerless in precison*, courage and wisdom, Morrison was the first African American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize, “who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.” When she took the podium on December 7, 1993 to accept her award, she gifted the world a most extraordinary reflection about the power of language – how it can free us, imprison us, connect us, divide us – and about the choices each of us makes about how to use it.

Word-work is sublime … because it is generative; it makes meaning that secures our difference, our human difference — the way in which we are like no other life.

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.

This reflection, like all of Morrison’s work, is as relevant today as any other time over the course of history. We hope you will take some time with her voice and her words.

Our original intention was to run the lecture in the form of an audio / visual installation in our Borden Park for neighbors and visitors passing through but per Mother Nature’s plans, we have moved the installation online where all can see. We do hope to see you in our park as soon as the snow melts or the cherry blossoms start blooming.