Celebrating Toni Cade Bambara
April 12, 2008
New Anthology Celebrates Toni Cade Bambara
Savoring the Salt: The Legacy of Toni Cade Bambara
Linda Janet Holmes & Cheryl A. Wall, editors
Temple University Press ©2008
“I was fortunate…blessed to have Toni’s presence in my life at such a critical time in my life. In February 1990, at the very ripe age of 20, I shared my feelings of alienation, and inadequacy at Swarthmore College combined with my frustration with the racist and sexist Eurocentric film department at Temple University– things like watching and critiquing camera techniques, without any social commentary, of films like “Birth of A Nation” and “Imitation of Life with Toni.” After hearing my frustration and disappointment with my undergraduate studies at Temple University, Toni told me to come to a place called Scribe Video Center to take her scriptwriting workshop. I told Toni I didn’t have any additional money to take a scriptwriting workshop. Her response was “I didn’t ask you if you had any money, I told you to come to Scribe Video Center and take my scriptwriting workshop.” Toni’s response forever changed my life…” -Aishah Shahidah Simmons-
From 1990, when I was 21 years old, through 1995, I had the absolute privilege to know and learn from Toni Cade Bambara who was an award-winning author, screenwriter, organizer, activist, teacher. Her “hands on” influence on some of the most prominent writers and filmmakers spans two generations. Personally, were it not for Toni’s profound presence in my life at a critical period in my life, I don’t know if I would be a documentary filmmaker today. I wrote about my herstory with Toni and her pivotal role in my becoming a documentary filmmaker, in my featured essay “Asserting My In(ter)dependence: The Evolution of NO!”
As the editors the timeless and celebratory Savoring the Salt: The Legacy of Toni Cade Bambara, Linda Janet Holmes and Cheryl Wall have done a magnificent job of gathering a chorus of well known and lesser known diverse voices who sing a praise song for Toni Cade Bambara, one of the preeminent cultural workers.
BUY YOUR COPY OF “SAVORING THE SALT” TODAY!!!!
“Brilliance, courage and joy are what I knew of Toni Cade Bambara. Savoring the Salt mirrors her exhilarating intellect and the reach of her incomparable talents. Clearly, in these pages, the impact of her life and work—on family, friends, artists, students, colleagues—is as profound as it is forever”
—Toni Morrison
The extraordinary spirit of Toni Cade Bambara lives on in Savoring the Salt, a vibrant and appreciative recollection of the work and legacy of the multi-talented, African American writer, teacher, filmmaker, and activist. Among the contributors who remember Bambara, reflect on her work, and examine its meaning today are Toni Morrison, Amiri Baraka, Pearl Cleage, Ruby Dee, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Nikki Giovanni, Avery Gordon, Audre Lorde, and Sonia Sanchez.
“This is a moving tribute to a seminal figure of American literature whose work continues to resonate.”
—Booklist
“Toni Cade Bambara is one of the great literary figures of the late 20th century. She deserves more serious attention and sustained scrutiny. This magnificent volume is a first step toward this necessary effort!”— Cornel West
“Toni Cade Bambara was a genius of language, an artist of connectedness, a lucid, inspired artisan of human freedom. This collection in many voices, hers threaded throughout, is a gift to her memory, a continuing rediscovery of her visionary work, and an important historical document.”
— Adrienne Rich
“Nikki Giovanni, Amiri Baraka, Pearl Cleage and other African American luminaries remember the late writer and activist [Toni Cade Bambara]. What emerges is a portrait of a brilliant wordsmith and tireless revolutionary who 10 years after her death, is missed, says Cleage, ‘each and every day.’”
— “Ms.” Magazine
“The breadth of outstanding contributors to this collection is evidence of Toni Cade Bambara’s enormous influence on writers, filmmakers, scholars, and community activists. Bambara’s artistry, insight, and lived example create a directive for 21st century artists: Tap into the genius within, stay rooted in local communities, and use culture as a tool for progressive social change.”
— Louis Massiah
BUY YOUR COPY OF “SAVORING THE SALT” TODAY!!!!
About the Author(s)
Linda Janet Holmes is a writer, independent scholar, and activist. She is also co-author of Listen To Me Good: The Story of An Alabama Midwife.
Cheryl A. Wall is Professor of English at Rutgers University, and the author of Worrying the Line: Black Women Writers, Lineage, and Literary Tradition
Rape is a Crisis in Black Communities by Salamishah Tillet
April 10, 2008
It’s A Crisis
April 10, 2008 — Given the staggeringly high incidence of sexual violence in black communities it is fair to ask why this problem has not risen to the level of a crisis in the public consciousness
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Perhaps one of the truest and most tragic lines in American film is spoken by the character Yellow Mary in Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust(1991) when she sadly declares that “the rape of the colored woman is as common as fish in the sea.” As a rape survivor, I speak on behalf of the 1 in 4 women who will experience sexual assault in her lifetime.
Moreover, since April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, I hope to bring awareness to the fact that even though African-American women make up about 7% of the U.S. population, we currently constitute 18.8% to 28% of the reported sexual assault victims. These women are ,and have always been, our grandmothers,our daughters, our partners. And our friends.
Given the staggering statistics, I cannot help but wonder why this pandemic does not constitute a crisis within both African-American communities and the larger American body politic. African-American women have consistently spoken out against social ills such as the War in Iraq and racial injustices experienced by black men — from lynching to police brutality to racial profiling.
And yet, they have had to confront their own experiences with race and gender-related sexual violence without the support of many African-American leaders. Today, most rapes are intra-racial. The vast majority of rape victims, almost ninety-percent, report that a member of their same racial or ethnic group sexually assaulted them.
Unfortunately, because many African-American female rape victims do not want to perpetuate racial stereotypes about the black male rapist (created and used by white mobs to justify the lynching of economically and politically mobile black men) and the black male criminal (now used to maintain racial disparities in the criminal justice system), they often do not press charges against their assailants because they fear further criminalizing African-American men.
Like most rape victims, many African-American women understand that public disbelief, sexual double standards, and sexist stereotypes such as the “gold-digger” will greet their accusations of rape. But even more egregiously, African-American women know that they risk being labeled a race traitor by some who view their actions as airing “dirty laundry.”
And yet, there is a long tradition of African-American women speaking out about sexual violence, and mixing their anti-rape discourse with anti-racist activism. In 1866, a group of African-American women testified before Congress about white mobs who sexually assaulted them during the infamous Memphis race riots. Following suit, African-American activist and journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett continually linked her anti-lynching crusade with her clarion call to end sexual violence.
Today, we can turn to African-American women novelists such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, entertainers such as Oprah Winfrey and Gabrielle Union, writers such as Charlotte Pierce-Baker’s Surviving the Silence(2000) and Lori Robinson’s I Will Survive (2003) to locate models of anti-rape activism.
We should look at filmmaker Aishah Shahidah Simmons’s groundbreaking film NO! The Rape Documentary which details the history of African-American women and sexual violence and watch photographer Scheherazade Tillet’s [Full disclosure: She's my sister] multimedia performance SOARS (Story of A Rape Survivor) which brilliantly uses the visual and performing arts to document the journey of recovering from and healing after rape.
In order to end the sexual violence experienced by African-American women, we need to recognize sexual abuse as one of the most important issues facing black America today. We need to encourage and include the voices of African-American women in mainstream activism against rape. And we need ensure that our demands for political and racial justice include calls for an end to sexism, sexual violence and homophobia. Until we begin supporting and believing African-American rape victims, we will always be engaged in a half-hearted fight for racial equality.
Salamishah Tillet is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania and co-founder of the non-profit organization, A Long Walk Home, Inc., which uses art therapy and the visual and performing arts to document and to end violence against underserved women and children.
Celebrating the life and legacy of Toni Cade Bambara in New York & Atlanta
March 20, 2008
Black Feminist Cultural Worker Extraordinaire
©2004, Susan J. Ross, photographer
“I start with the recognition that we are at war, and that war is not simply a hot debate between the capitalist camp and the socialist camp over which economic/political /social arrangement will have hegemony in the world. It’s not just the battle over turf and who has the right to utilize resources for whomsoever’s benefit. The war is also being fought over the truth: What is the truth about human nature, about the human potential? My responsibility to myself, my neighbors, my family and the human family is to try to tell the truth. That ain’t easy…We have rarely been encouraged and equipped to appreciate the fact that the truth works and it releases the Spirit and that it is a joyous thing. We live in a part of the world, for example, that equates criticism with assault, that equates social responsibility with naive idealism, that defines the unrelenting pursuit of knowledge and wisdom as fanaticism…“-Toni Cade Bambara-
During the week of March 24, 2008, there will be two major celebrations of the life and legacy of Toni Cade Bambara, internationally acclaimed, award-winning Black feminist mother, author, teacher, organizer, activist, filmmaker, cultural worker.
The first event will be held at the Brecht Forum, in New York City, on Tuesday, March 25, 2008, which is the 69th anniversary of her birth. Linda Janet Holmes and Cheryl A. Wall, editors of Savoring the Salt: The Legacy of Toni Cade Bambara, along with sister contributors Salamishah Tillet, Aishah Shahidah Simmons, and others who have had the opportunity to know Toni personally and/or through her work will read from and sign Savoring the Salt, which is a praisesong to one of the ultimate cultural workers who walked the talk of using one’s work to make (radically progressive, left of center) revolution irresistible.
This celebratory event will be held at 7:30pm. The Brecht Forum is located at 451 West Street (between Bank & Bethune Streets), New York, NY 10014. Their phone number is (212) 242-4201. For more information, please visit http://www.brechtforum.org/node/1514?bc=
“I was fortunate…blessed to have Toni’s presence in my life at such a critical time in my life. In February 1990, at the very ripe age of 20, I shared my feelings of alienation, and inadequacy at Swarthmore College combined with my frustration with the racist and sexist Eurocentric film department at Temple University– things like watching and critiquing camera techniques, without any social commentary, of films like “Birth of A Nation” and “Imitation of Life with Toni.” After hearing my frustration and disappointment with my undergraduate studies at Temple University, Toni told me to come to a place called Scribe Video Center to take her scriptwriting workshop. I told Toni I didn’t have any additional money to take a scriptwriting workshop. Her response was “I didn’t ask you if you had any money, I told you to come to Scribe Video Center and take my scriptwriting workshop.” Toni’s response forever changed my life…” -Aishah Shahidah Simmons-
Toni Cade Bambara Scholar-Activism Conference, Spelman College, 3.28- 3.29.08
©2004, Susan J. Ross, Photographer
“The second opportunity to celebrate Toni Cade Bambara’s life and legacy will be at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA where they will host the 8th annual Toni Cade Bambara Scholar-Activism Conference. The theme of this year’s conference is “Black Feminisms on Fire!!!” Pre conference activities begin on Thursday, March 28th at 11am. On Friday, March 29, 2008 at 6pm, there will be a Savoring the Salt reception, book reading and signing with editors Linda Janet Holmes, Cheryl A. Wall and contributors Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Rudolph Byrd, Sue Ross, Valerie Boyd, and Aishah Shahidah Simmons. On Saturday, March 30, 2008 there will be a morning plenary on Toni Cade Bambara followed by workshops on a myriad of topics including: reproductive rights and women’s health; images of women in the media and popular culture; black feminisms; women’s art and creativity; women’s global & transnational activism; gendered economics and other topics that inform our internal and external world
Co-founded by Dr. Bahati M. Kuumba, associate director of the Spelman College’s Womens Resource and Research Center, this conference is the culminating activity of the Toni Cade Bambara Writer/Scholar/Activist Program and Collective which sponsors an annual lecture and workshop series; a student collective; and an annual newsletter, Sisters of the Word.
For detailed information on this conference, please visit http://www.museum.spelman.edu/about_us/distinction/womenscenter/tonicadebambara.shtml
The two photographs of Toni Cade Bambara
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