Blogs

by President Heidi R. Lewis
March 3, 2025

I write this blog from Colorado Springs, CO. Stolen land—the unceded territory of the Ute Peoples, to be precise—developed with stolen and exploited labor. I do so, because as Sandra Guzmán points out, land acknowledgements “recognize and respect Indigenous peoples as the traditional stewards of their lands and the enduring relationship that exists between Indigenous peoples and their traditional territories.”

The day after NWSA’s 35th annual conference in Puerto Rico concluded on November 17, 2014, the Toni Cade Bambara 75th Birthday Forum Aishah Shahidah Simmons and I co-curated and edited for The Feminist Wire kicked off with my essay, “‘Not All Speed Is Movement’: Toni Cade Bambara and the Black Feminist Tradition.” I just reread that essay for the first time in a long time, and I could feel the anxiety almost the same way I felt it back then. The forum featured Cheryl Clarke, Pearl Cleage, Louis Massiah, Nikki Finney, Rita Dove, Gloria I. Joseph, Haki Madhubuti, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Paula J. Giddings, bell hooks, Sonia Sanchez, and many more friends, colleagues, students, and admirers of Toni’s. It was a great honor and privilege to read, curate, and edit their work with Aishah, and it was especially important for me to ensure my place as the author of its introduction was earned, deserved.

Back then, I had no idea I’d be elected to serve as the NWSA’s 22nd President less than a decade later and that I’d be concluding my two-year term presiding over the Association’s 44th annual conference, also in Puerto Rico. What did I say what seemed like a hundred times last year in Detroit? “Sometimes, things really do come full circle.”

Long before I even connected those dots, I decided my final conference would feature a second plenary celebrating Toni Cade Bambara. First and foremost, at least one Black feminist plenary is a must for me; second, Bambara is my favorite feminist, hands up and down; third, she transcended 30 years ago this year on December 9; and, most importantly, this year is the anniversary of two of the most important feminist texts ever published, in my humble and professional opinion, texts we would not have without the unapologetic Black feminist brilliance and bravery of Toni Cade Bambara. Fifty-five years ago, she published The Black Woman, a classic Black feminist anthology that featured many of our revered and beloved icons like Kay Lindsey, Alice Walker, Abbey Lincoln, Nikki Giovanni, Gail Stokes, Grace Lee Boggs, Frances Beale, Audre Lorde, and Paule Marshall. Then, one decade after that, she published The Salt Eaters, the classic Black feminist novel that taught us “wholeness is no trifling matter,” the one that often inspires us to ask, “Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?”

On March 25, 2014, I wrote and published a “Feminists We Love” essay honoring Toni on what would have been her 75th birthday. Today, almost 11 years later, I’m republishing that essay here (edited for the sake of clarity, as well as rhetorical and intellectual growth), because sometimes, we need to dig in the crates and remember who we are, who we’ve been, and where we come from. 

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The Black Woman: An Anthology. One of the most important gifts I’ve ever been given. And I’m sure she knew she was giving it to me, along with so many other Black women, eleven years before I was even born. Toni Cade Bambara gave me Kay Lindsey, Abbey Lincoln, Gail Stokes, Frances Beale, herself, and so many other women I may never have known had I never picked up that little black book.

For every time I confronted traumatizing heteropatriarchal politics—before I even knew those words existed—Lindsey wrote, “But now that the revolution needs numbers/ Motherhood got a new position/ Five steps behind manhood/ And I thought sittin’ in the back of the bus/ Went out with Martin Luther King.” For every time I was abandoned and left alone to hold my community on my back—before I was even old enough to ride a bike without training wheels—Lincoln wrote, “Play hide and seek as long as you can and will, but your every rejection and abandonment of us is only a sorry testament of how thoroughly and carefully you have been blinded and brainwashed.” For every time I felt obligated to dim my light so a Black man could shine in the darkness of white supremacy, Stokes wrote, “I eagerly and happily feed you from the plate of motivation knowing that it is difficult for you to help yourself. But, then at times you cause my arms to grow weary as I work harder straining myself in order to build you up. Straining myself as I watch you now and again hesitate and then refuse the nourishment.” For every time I wondered why there were gaping theoretical holes where I knew Black women should be, Beale wrote, “We as Black women have got to deal with the problems that the Black masses deal with, for our problems in reality are one and the same.” 

And for every time I couldn’t sit still or remain silent and for every time I felt compelled to move outside of “my place,” to say and do “too much,” Bambara wrote, “The daughter, heretofore relegated to a mute existence as a minor in her father’s household or a minor in her husband’s household, found through involvement with the struggle a new discipline, a world of responsibility. She was no longer simply an item in a marriage contract or business deal but a revolutionary committed to action.”

Toni Cade Bambara gave me a feminism that was Black—a feminism that was loud, strong, collective, vulnerable, powerful, communal, honest, and intimate, a feminism that was me, and that would be waiting for me, whenever I was ready. She gave me the kind of Black feminism that wasn’t afraid to look around and that refused to suffer fools, declaring, “I try to live [the Golden Rule] and I certainly expect it of some particular others. But I’ll be damned if I want most folks out there to do unto me what they do unto themselves.” 

At the same time, she was equally invested in the kind of self-reflexive work that soothes as much as it stings. Her work continually asks us, like healer Minnie Ransom asks Velma in The Salt Eaters, “Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well? Just so’s you’re sure, sweetheart, and ready to be healed, cause wholeness is no trifling matter. A lot of weight when you’re well.” The feminism she gave me is heavy. And because of that, I sometimes still wonder if I’m really ready. For, as she once said, “Revolution begins with the self, in the self.”

Toni Cade Bambara was born Miltona Mirkin Cade on March 25, 1939 to Walter and Helen Cade in New York City. Thirty years later, she added Bambara to her name to honor the West African Mandé community. After graduating from Queens College with a Bachelor’s degree in Theater and English Literature, she studied at the Ecole de Mime Etienne Decroux in Paris. Later, she earned a Master’s in American Studies at City College in New York, while serving as Program Director of the Colony Settlement House in Brooklyn, NY. She also worked in social services, and was a Recreation Director at Metropolitan Hospital. In the mid-1960s, she worked for City College’s Search for Education, Elevation, Knowledge (SEEK) Program and with SEEK’s theater. She returned to the academy to become an Assistant Professor of English at Livingston College and also a Visiting Professor of Afro-American Studies at Emory and African American Studies and Social Work at Atlanta University. She was also a Writer-in-Residence at the Neighborhood Arts Center, Stephens College, and Spelman, and she taught Film and Script Writing at Louis Massiah’s Scribe Video Center.

Bambara was also a prolific and accomplished writer, publishing The Black Woman: An Anthology (1970), Tales and Stories for Black Folks (1971), Gorilla, My Love (1972), The War of the Wall (1976), The Sea Birds Are Still Alive: Collected Short Stories (1977), The Salt Eaters (1980), Deep Sightings and Rescue Missions: Fiction, Essays and Conversations with Toni Morrison (1996), and Those Bones Are not My Child (1999), among other texts. A founding member of the Southern Collective of African-American writers, she was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame 20 years after her death in 1995. She also produced numerous screenplays, including Zora (1971), The Johnson Girls (1972), The Long Night (1981), Tar Baby (1984), The Bombing of Osage Avenue (1986), and others. In addition to teaching, writing, and producing, her transnational activism during the Civil Rights and Black Power movements led her to both Cuba and Vietnam.

This year, she would have been 75 years old. And while her physical body is no longer with us, we honor her spirit, her life, her words, and her work, because Toni Cade Bambara—activist, author, documentary filmmaker, professor, daughter, sister, and mother—is undoubtedly a feminist we love.

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Happy (almost) 86th birthday, Toni—the timeless, brilliant, brave, and beautiful one who continues to be a supreme guiding light for my who, what, when, where, why, and how. My forever promise—you are loved, and you are missed. 

Per my strategic plan, “Reconnect, Repair, Restore: A More Thoughtful, Transparent, and Trustworthy NWSA,” these blogs are meant, in part, to give you a chance to get to know me and get excited about our upcoming annual conference. This one aims to do both.