Toni Cade Bambara was an Atlanta writer, political activist, filmmaker, and teacher. Born as Miltona Mirkin Cade, she came to find her new name throughout different stages of her life. As a child, she identified with the name Toni, and in her college years, she went by Toni Cade. In 1970, she added Bambara to her name to honor the West African Mandé community. That same year, her name was legally changed. She devoted her life to building a stronger community through both literature and social justice.

Bambara was born on March 25, 1939, in New York City. Similarly, her mother grew up Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance, and would later encourage her children to daydream, read, and write. As a child, Bambara spent a lot of time in the New York Public Library and was inspired by poems from Gwendolyn Brooks and Langston Hughes. She began writing stories as a child and cited her mother’s support as a major influence.

In 1954, Bambara attended Queens College in New York where her passion for arts led her to become an English major. She was involved in many creative fields, in addition to writing. With a strong passion for jazz and theater she joined the Dance Club of Queens College and became a stage manager and costume designer. Despite her many commitments, she continued to fiercely pursue writing. Her first short story, “Sweet Town,” appeared in Vendome in 1959.

After earning her B.A. in Theater and English Literature, Bambara studied at the Ecole de Mime Etienne Decroux in Paris, France. By summer 1960, her second short story, “Mississippi Ham Rider,” was published in The Massachusetts Review’s. Later, she earned a master’s degree in American Studies at City College in New York, while serving as Program Director of the Colony Settlement House in Brooklyn, New York.

Throughout the late ’60s and ’70s, Bambara blended social engagement with arts education. She worked in social services and was a Recreation Director at New York’s Metropolitan Hospital. In the mid-1960s, Bambara worked for City College’s Search for Education, Elevation, Knowledge (SEEK) Program, including their theater department. She returned to the academy to become an assistant professor of English at Livingston College in New Jersey, and a visiting professor of Afro-American Studies at Emory University and African American Studies and Social Work at Atlanta University.

Creativity remained a core focus for Bambara. She was a Writer-in-Residence at the Neighborhood Arts Center and Spelman College in Atlanta, and Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. Bambara taught Film and Script Writing at Louis Massiah’s Scribe Video Center and was also a founding member of the Southern Collective of African American Writers in Atlanta during the late ’70s.

During her career, Bambara was a prolific, accomplished writer. Her publications include Gorilla, My Love (1972), a collection of short stories, The Sea Birds Are Still Alive: Collected Stories (1977), and The Salt Eaters (1980), her first novel. Her second novel, Those Bones Are Not My Child (1999) chronicles the string of murders of Black children in Atlanta that occurred in the early 1980s. She wrote it over the course of 12 years, and Pulitzer Prize winner Toni Morrison would later describe the work as Bambara’s “magnum opus.”

Bambara also edited influential anthologies such as The Black Woman: An Anthology (1970), Tales and Stories for Black Folks (1971), and Deep Sightings and Rescue Missions: Fiction, Essays, and Conversations (1996), which features conversations with Toni Morrison. Her screenwriting work was equally expansive with projects including Zora (1971), The Johnson Girls (1972), The Long Night (1981), Tar Baby (1984), The Bombing of Osage Avenue (1986), Raymond’s Run (1985), and others.

In addition to teaching, writing, and producing, Bambara’s activism during the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, led her to both Cuba and Vietnam. Bambara’s work was explicitly political, concerned with injustice, oppression, and with the fate of African American communities and grassroots political organizations.

Bambara passed away in 1995, at the age of 56, following a two-year battle with cancer. Even during her treatment, she continued to strengthen her community in any ways she could. Toni Cade Bambara was posthumously inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2013.