Mya Angelou :: Essays Papers

Mya AngelouToni Morrison, the for the first time foul woman to receive Nobel Prize in Literature, was born Chloe Anthony Wofford on February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio, U.S.A. She was the second of four children of George Wofford, a shipyard welder and Ramah Willis Wofford. Her parents moved to Ohio from the South to escape racialism and to find better opportunities in the North. Her father was a hardworking and self-respecting man. While the children were growing up, he worked three jobs at the same succession for almost 17 years. He took a great deal of feel in the quality of his work, so that each time he welded a perfect seam hed in addition weld his name onto the side of the ship. He also made sure to be well-dressed, even during the Depression. Her mother was a church-going woman and she sang in the choir. At home, Chloe heard many songs and tales of southern black folklore. The Woffords were proud of their heritage. Lorain was a small industrial town dwell with immigrant Europeans, Mexicans and Southern blacks who lived next to each other. Chloe go to an integrated school. In her first grade, she was the only black student in her class and the only star who could read. She was friends with many of her white schoolmates and did not encounter discrimination until she started dating. She hoped one daytime to become a dancer like her favorite ballerina, Maria Tallchief, and she also loved to read. Her early favorites were the Russian writers Tolstoy and Dostoyevski, French author Gustave Flaubert and English novelist Jane Austen. She was an elegant student and she graduated with honors from Lorain High School in 1949. Chloe Wofford then attended the prestigious Howard University in Washington, D.C., where she majored in English with a minor in classics. Since many people couldnt pronounce her first name correctly, she changed it to Toni, a runty version of her middle name. She joined a repertory company, the Howard University Players, with whom sh e made several(prenominal) tours of the South. She saw firsthand the life of the blacks there, the life her parents had escaped by pitiful north. Toni Wofford graduated from Howard University in 1953 with a B.A. in English. She then attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and received a masters degree in 1955. After graduating, Toni was offered a job at Texas Southern University in Houston, where she taught introductory English.