[PW] ? Toni Morrison & "It Takes a Village" (Quotation Query #645)

[Daphne Drewello]

Fred Shapiro wrote

> In The Yale Book of Quotations the earliest English-language evidence I 
> give for "it takes a village to raise a child" is dated 1989.  However, 
> there are several early references to Toni Morrison using that saying. 
> Can anyone point me to any pre-1989 writing, speech, or interview in which 
> Morrison used it?
>

  Although I do not have the item to check, Toni Morrison apparently said 
the following to Judith Miller of Essence in 1981:

"...'cause I don't think one parent can raise a child. I don't think two 
parents can raise a child. You really need the whole
village."

( "A Conversation with Toni Morrison." Interview by Judith Wilson. Essence 
July 1981, 84-86+. )


Daphne Drewello
Alfred Dickey Library
Jamestown, ND