This past weekend Toni Morrison “held a memorial ceremony to dedicate her long-awaited ‘bench by the road,’” commemorating slaves and their history.
'It’s never too late to honor the dead,' said Ms. Morrison, 77, the author of eight novels, as she sat down on the 6-foot-long, 26-inch-deep black steel bench facing the Intracoastal Waterway. 'It’s never too late to applaud the living who do them honor,' she said. 'This is extremely moving to me.' – from “Bench of Memory at Slavery’s Gateway,” by Felicia R. Lee, The New York Times