Editors: Makeba Lavan and Conor Tomás Reed
Part I: 61 pp, softcover, saddle-stitch binding
Part II: 38 pp, softcover, saddle-stitch binding
While Toni Cade Bambara is mostly known for her short stories, novels, and landmark 1970 anthology The Black Woman, “Realizing the Dream of a Black University,” & Other Writings explores lesser-known aspects of her work and revives her far-reaching pedagogical legacy. Through memoirs and texts drawn from City College of New York’s radical 1960s educational experiments, we learn how Bambara dedicated her life to embedding and expanding Black and Third World studies in academic institutions, community settings, and the larger collective consciousness while imbuing these efforts with her own unique form of infectious activism and unflinching clarity.
Author Biography:
TONI (MILTONA MIRKIN) BAMBARA was born on March 25, 1939 in Harlem, New York, where she spent her childhood immersed in neighborhood learning and performance spaces. She studied at Queens College and City College of New York, CUNY, where she also taught, before going to Livingston College in New Jersey. In 1974, Bambara moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where she began to write full-time and teach in homes, community centers, and various campuses. In 1985, she again moved to Philadelphia, where she nurtured the rise of Black independent cinema. Throughout her life, the prolific writer produced a wide array of fiction, essays, screenplays, anthologies, and film treatments. Bambara died of colon cancer on December 9, 1995, at the age of 56.
Selected Archives:
- City College of New York Cohen Library Archives and Special Collections
- Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America Collections
- Spelman College Archives
