Bambara, Toni Cade

original name Toni Cade

(born March 25, 1939, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Dec. 9, 1995, Philadelphia, Pa.) American writer, civil-rights activist, and teacher who wrote about the concerns of the African-American community.

Reared by her mother in Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Queens, N.Y., Bambara (a surname she adopted in 1970) was educated at Queens College (B.A., 1959). In 1961 she went to Europe, studying acting and mime in Italy and in France. She received an M.A. in 1964 from City College of the City University of New York. She was a frequent lecturer and teacher at universities and a political activist who worked to raise black American consciousness and pride. In the 1970s she was active in both the black liberation and the women's movements.

Bambara's fiction, which is set in the rural South as well as the urban North, is written in black street dialect and presents sharply drawn characters whom she portrayed with affection. She published the short-story collections Gorilla, My Love (1972) and The Sea Birds Are Still Alive (1977), as well as the novels The Salt Eaters (1980) and If Blessing Comes (1987). She edited and contributed to The Black Woman: An Anthology (1970) and to Tales and Stories for Black Folks (1971). She also collaborated on several television documentaries.