Toni Cade Bambara

Writer

• Born: March 25, 1939
• Birthplace: New York, New York
• Died: December 9, 1995
• Place of death: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Known for her contributions to African American literature, Bambara celebrated black identity through depictions of its traditions, customs, and folklore. Representative of the African American and women writers who were political activists during the 1960’s and 1970’s, she produced literature that employs a unique voice and style to address social concerns.

Early Life

Born as Miltona Mirkin Cade in were chosen, Toni Cade Bambara (TOH-nee kayd bam-BAH-rah) was the second child born to Walter Cade II and Helen Brent Henderson. Along with her brother, Bambara grew up in the Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Queens districts of New York City and in Jersey City, New Jersey. Bambara’s mother encouraged her children to express their feelings and discouraged the use of gender stereotypes. She also kept her children aware of racism and advised them to tell her if they heard racist or stereotypical slurs or witnessed other racist acts. The Bambara family moved frequently, and even as a child Bambara observed the customs and attitudes of the locals as she wandered the streets looking for the nearest library, searching for an artistic event, or hoping to encounter an interesting person with whom to strike up a conversation.

When she was a small child, Bambara announced that she was changing her name to Toni. She struggled with her name until her college years, when she was known as Toni Cade. In 1970, when she was pregnant and searching for a full name for her child, she uttered out loud “Karma Bene Bambara” and knew that she had found her own last name. That year, her name was legally changed to Toni Cade Bambara.

Life’s Work

Bambara published her first short story, “Sweet Town,” in Vendome magazine in 1959, the same year she received her bachelor’s degree in theater arts and English from Queens College. She also received the John Golden Award for Fiction and the Long Island Star Pauper Press Award for nonfiction. In 1961, she began graduate school at City College of New York while working as a social worker for the Harlem Welfare Center. During the early 1960’s, she also worked for community programs such as the Equivalency Program and the Houston Street Public Library’s Tutorial Program.

After receiving her master’s degree in 1965, Bambara taught in City College’s Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge (SEEK) program, working with the black theater group and SEEK publications. In 1970, she edited The Black Woman, an anthology of short stories, poems, and essays by noted African American women writers such as Nikki Giovanni, Alice Walker, and Paule Marshall, as well as students in the SEEK program. The collection is notable because it gave voice to the African American woman’s perspective.

From 1969 to 1974, Bambara taught at Livingston College in New Jersey. In 1971, her second anthology, Tales and Stories for Black Folks, appeared. Its goal was to teach young African Americans about what Bambara called “Our Great Kitchen Tradition,” the African American legacy of storytelling. She wanted to stress the importance of oral history and folktales. Like The Black Woman, Tales and Stories for Black Folks comprised the work of well-known authors with pieces by previously unpublished writers. By giving new authors such a distinguished forum, Bambara helped continue and expand the canon of black literature.

During the 1960’s and 1970’s, the Civil Rights movement and second wave of feminism in the United States created a zeitgeist ripe for artistic endeavors that challenged social inequality. Bambara’s participation in these political movements inspired her to visit Cuba in 1973 as a member of the North American Academic Marxist-Leninist Anti-Imperialist Feminist Women’s Delegation. Upon returning to the United States, she began to see her writing as a powerful platform to promote social progress. Bambara’s writings reflect this liberal ideology, as they call for racial and gender equality and illustrate the consequences of a capitalist society that promotes unequal distribution of wealth.

Bambara is well known for her short stories, most of which are collected in Gorilla, My Love (1972) and The Sea Birds Are Still Alive (1977). Most of the stories in Gorilla, My Love are told from the point of view of an adolescent. They deal with issues such as class, race, and gender, as well as struggles that transcend politics. The stories in The Sea Birds Are Still Alive reflect Bambara’s interest in international political issues, as several of the stories are set outside the United States and many point out the need for people to unite in their efforts for social change.

In addition to her short stories, Bambara published a novel, The Salt Eaters (1980), about a woman who sets out to expose a chemical corporation that is contaminating a black community. The nonlinear novel blends flashbacks with stream-of-consciousness narrative. The Salt Eaters won the American Book Award and the Langston Hughes Society Award in 1981, the same year Bambara was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

During the 1980’s and 1990’s, Bambara returned to her interest in theater and film. She wrote screenplays, acted, edited, and narrated several documentary films. In 1986, she wrote and narrated The Bombing of Osage Avenue, a documentary that deals with the 1985 bombing of the MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia. The film won an Academy Award for best documentary. Bambara also helped write the screenplay for the 1996 documentary W. E. B. Du Bois: A Biography in Four Voices.

Bambara died on December 9, 1995, of colon cancer. Toni Morrison edited and wrote the preface to Deep Sightings and Rescue Missions: Fiction, Essays, and Conversations, a collection of Bambara’s writings that was published in 1996. In 1999, Bambara’s last novel, Those Bones Are Not My Child, was published. It mixes fiction and history to tell the story of the infamous Atlanta child murders that took place during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.

Significance

As a writer, filmmaker, and political activist, Bambara made significant contributions to African American art. She is considered one of the leading chroniclers of the political and social movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s, including the Civil Rights movement, the Black Arts movement, and the second wave of feminism. She merged the political with the artistic to realistically depict the plights of African Americans, women, and the lower classes.

Bibliography

Bambara, Toni Cade. Deep Sightings and Rescue Missions: Fiction, Essays, and Conversations. Edited by Toni Morrison. New York: Vintage, 1996. Posthumously published collection of short stories, essays, and interviews.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Gorilla, My Love. New York: Random House, 1972. A collection of fifteen short stories, most of which concern adolescent girls.

Heller, Janet Ruth. “Toni Cade Bambara’s Use of African American Vernacular English in ’The Lesson.’” Style 37 (Fall, 2003): 279-293. Scholarly examination of Bambara’s writing technique and depictions of African American language and culture.

Holmes, Linda Janet, and Cheryl A. Wall, eds. Savoring the Salt: The Legacy of Toni Cade Bambara. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008. Collection of nine essays, interviews, and tributes to Bambara by fellow writers and scholars.