Notre Dame professor reflects on Toni Morrison's legacy

SOUTH BEND, Ind. --  Author, educator and Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison died Monday evening. Notre Dame professor Ernest Morrell teaches a class about Morrison and her work. He says her stories can be difficult to read, but her lessons are easy to teach.

"Having a course on her helps students to kind of work through some of this historical pain that we have, but also exposes them to a different vantage point on a moment they think they understand," said professor Morrell.

Morrell says Morrison will have a long lasting and powerful legacy.

"I think that she will become one of our most noteworthy American story tellers of the 19th and 20th century," Morrell said.

Morrison has won countless awards including the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 by President Barack Obama.