Bambara graduated from Queens College with a B.A. in Theater Arts/English Literature in 1959, then studied mime at the Ecole de Mime Etienne Decroux in Paris, France. She also became interested in dance before completing her master’s degree in American studies at City College, New York (from 1962), while serving as program director of Colony Settlement House in Brooklyn. She has also worked for New York social services and as a recreation director in the psychiatric ward of Metropolitan hospital. From 1965 to 1969 she was with City College’s Search for Education, Elevation, Knowledge-program. She taught English, published material and worked with SEEK’s black theatre group.
Bambara participated in several community and activist organizations, and her work was influenced by the Civil Rights and Black Nationalist movements of the 1960s. She went on propaganda trips to Cuba in 1973 and to Vietnam in 1975. She moved to Atlanta, GA, with her daughter, Karma Bene, and became a founding member of the Southern Collective of African-American Writers.
Some of her writings include:
The Salt Eaters
Published in 1980, Bambara said the novel “came out of a problem-solving impulse. ” She was interested in bringing together the activists, warriors, and medicine people within her community to “fuse those camps” into a venerable force. Set in Claybourne, Georgia, the novel is about a community of black people searching for the healing properties of salt. In a recorded interview with Kay Bonetti (1982), Bambara reflects on the symbolism of salt and the African flying myth, both critical metaphorical components to the novel. Her reflection is itself wonderfully representative of the eloquent oral tradition of the African-American community: “We got grounded because we ate too much salt, but some folks say it, we got grounded because we opened ourselves up to horror — invited it onto the continent — that created tears. And it was that salt that drowned our wings and made us earth-bound. ” The novel centers on Velma Henry, a community organizer who experiences both a mental and emotional crisis, and Minnie Ransom, a faith healer. However, according to Ruth Elizabeth Burks (“From Baptism to Resurrection”), “the characters speak little, because they have lost the desire to communicate through words. Their thoughts, as conveyed by Bambara, are more real to them than that that is real” (qtd. in Butler-Evans 173). For Bambara, this is purposeful; she looked for “a new kind of narrator — narrator as medium . . . a kind of magnet through which other people tell their stories. “
The Black Woman
A collection of early, emerging works from some of today’s most celebrated African American female writers.
When it was first published in 1970, The Black Woman introduced readers to an astonishing new wave of voices that demanded to be heard. In this groundbreaking volume of original essays, poems, and stories, a chorus of outspoken women — many who would become leaders in their fields: bestselling novelist Alice Walker, poets Audre Lorde and Nikki Giovanni, writer Paule Marshall, activist Grace Lee Boggs, and musician Abbey Lincoln among them — tackled issues surrounding race and sex, body image, the economy, politics, labor, and much more. Their words still resonate with truth, relevance, and insight today.
Toni Cade Bambara we salute you!