Osizwe Raena Jamila Harwell - This Womans Work: The Writing and Activism of Bebe Moore Campbell

The Writing and Activism of

Bebe
Moore
Campbell

Osizwe Raena Jamila Harwell

www.upress.state.ms.us

The University Press of Mississippi is a member
of the Association of American University Presses.

Copyright 2016 by University Press of Mississippi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America

First printing 2016
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Harwell, Osizwe Raena, author.
Title: This womans work: The writing and activism of Bebe Moore Campbell / Osizwe Raena Jamila Harwell.
Description: Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 2016. | Series: Margaret Walker Alexander series in African American studies | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015044828 (print) | LCCN 2016001783 (ebook) | ISBN 9781496807588 (hardback) | ISBN 9781496807595 (epub single) | ISBN 9781496807601 (epub institutional) | ISBN 9781496807618 (pdf single) | ISBN 9781496807625 (pdf institutional)
Subjects: LCSH: Campbell, Bebe Moore, 19502006Political and social views. | African American authorsBiography. | Authors, American20th centuryBiography. | African American women political activistsBiography. | Social change in literature. | Race relations in literature. | Mental illness in literature. | BISAC: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Womens Studies. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies.
Classification: LCC PS3553.A4395 Z53 2016 (print) | LCC PS3553.A4395 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015044828

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

Part One
Campus Activism and Community Mental Health Awareness

Part Two
Reading Campbells First and Last Novels as Activist Text

I am grateful to have so many communities and sources of rich support. This project simply would not have been possible without the kindness, expertise, and sacrifice of so many amazing people. First and foremost I want to acknowledge my editor, Craig Gill, and the wonderful team at the University Press of Mississippi. I could not have asked for a more encouraging, patient, and reassuring editor. Thank you for your great confidence in this work and guidance each step of the way.

Nathaniel Norment Jr., Valerie Smith, Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd, Daniel Omotosho Black, Layli Maparyan, Abu Abarry, Muhammed Ahmed, Sonja Peterson-Lewis, Patricia Melzer, Bettye Collier-Thomas, Pamela Barnett, James Daviscollectively you have guided me on the path of excellent scholarship, excellent research, and excellent character. Thank you for your powerful example.

Throughout my writing process many friends offered accountability, writing dates, proofreading, printing services, and a critical eye to make this book the best it could be. Kami Anderson, Mari Laela Mitchell, Ayanna Jones, Takiyah Nur Amin, Miriam Petty-Adams, Mei Campanella, Khaia Smith, Cedric Smith, Kanika Bell-Thomas, Jonathan Gayles, Sarita Davis, and Makungu Akinyelayou made rough places smoother, and I love you for loving me so much! I want to say a special thank you to Vanessa Jackson, an amazing power coach and adviser, for ensuring that I stayed the course in positive, healthy ways.

I am grateful for my lineage of love and power: my fathers James Seku Harwell and Clarence Milan; my brothers Zaire L. Harwell, Kendrick Scales, and Tiq Milan; my grandmothers Julia Bolden and Florine Harwell; and my othermothers Janice Rounds and Rosemarie Norment. To the Harwell, Bolden, Milan, and Scales families, you are my foundation, a place to which I can always return when I am in need. To the Spiritual Living Center of Atlanta and the Nation of Nzinga and Ndugu, thank you for growing mecontinually and lovinglyto share my gifts, to heal, and to love freely. I am fortunate for family, and I do not take for granted those who continually shower me with kindness, affirmation, meals when I am writing, a compassionate ear, a good laugh, or a warm hug. Thank you to so many loved ones, too many to list, but whose names are etched in my heart.

I am extremely grateful to all the friends, family, classmates, and colleagues of Bebe Moore Campbell for sharing your memories and to the Archive Service Center at the University of Pittsburgh. Ellis Gordon, Doris Moore, Linda Wharton BoydI thank you especially for welcoming me inside your homes and your hearts. To Bebe Moore Campbell Gordonyour vision, your power, and your voice have truly touched the world, and I am more than grateful for your life and your legacy.

Finally, my most heartfelt appreciation to my mother, Dolores Bolden-Milan, for your endless praise, financial support, cards sent in the mail, gentle criticism, and a million hours spent pouring over draft after draft with me as I revised this manuscript. In every encounter you are love personified. Thank you is woefully insufficient, and I fall short in every attempt to express my gratitude in words, but I know that you know!

On November 27, 2006, journalist, activist, and award-winning novelist Elizabeth Bebe Moore Campbell died at the age of fifty-six after a short battle with brain cancer. Although the author was widely known and acclaimed for her first novel, Your Blues Aint Like Mine (1992), there has been no substantive study of her life or of her literary and activist work. This book examines Campbells activism and writing, highlighting two periods of her lifeas a student at the University of Pittsburgh during the 1960s black student movement, and later as a mental health advocate near the end of her life in 2006. In this work, I also engage Campbells first and final novels, Your Blues Aint Like Mine and 72 Hour Hold (2005), and the direct relationship between these novels and her activist work. This critical biography is not a tell-all of Campbells personal life; it is an exploration of her writing, public service, and activism. Nonetheless, I do examine the ways her personal life, family struggles, and relationships inform and interact with her literary, journalistic, and activist work. Ultimately, I explore the personal and leadership characteristics that distinguish Campbell as a significant writer-activist who produced effective outcomes throughout her life work. I argue that these characteristics are sometimes overlooked, but are central to the discourse on black womens contemporary activism. As a writer, Campbell utilized recurring signature themes within her novels to theorize and connect popular audiences with African American historical memory and current sociopolitical issues. I purport that, through her literature, we learn more about Campbell, her politics, her personal life, and her public work for social change. Essentially, I offer a close study of Campbells work within organizations and a deep inquiry into her writing as an activist tool. Thus I provide the reader with a greater understanding of what Campbell does as an activist, and what her writing does to advance the social change she envisions.