Wydell Todd discover that although racism is not
as overt in the North as it is in the South, it is vis-
ible through the prevailing violence: “He [Wydell]
passed the street where he and Delotha had rented
a kitchenette when they first moved to Chicago.
They’d shared a bathroom with three other fami-
lies who’d come up from Mississippi. The area had
been hit hard by the riots and had deteriorated
badly.” The cramped living quarters, the riots, and
their aftermath symbolize, as LANGSTON HUGHES
suggests in his signature poem, deferred dreams.
Campbell’s novel was voted New York Times no-
table book of the year, and it was the winner of the
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF
COLORED PEOPLE Image Award for Literature.
In her next two novels, Campbell explores the
complexity of black familial relationships and their
impact on communities. The theme of Singing in
the Comeback Choir (1999) is forgiveness. The
protagonist, Maxine McCoy, a popular talk show
host, returns to Philadelphia, the neighborhood
of her childhood, to become the caretaker of her
grandmother, Lindy. In the end Maxine must not
only deal with her grandmother’s addictions but
also face the hopelessness of the blighted commu-
nity in which she and her neighbors live. Campbell
next published What You Owe Me (2001), in which
the central focus is on parent-child relationships;
however, Campbell also explores the theme of the
complex and often contentious relationship be-
tween blacks and Jews.
In her children’s book, Sometimes My Mommy
Gets Angry (2003), Campbell turns her attention to
mental health as an issue in the African-American
community. She describes how a young girl, Annie,
copes with her mother’s frightening and depress-
ing mental illness. The book won the National As-
sociation for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) Outstanding
Literature Award for 2003. In 2003 Campbell also
wrote her first play, Even with the Madness, which
also explores issues of mental illness and family.
Although known nationally for her novels,
Campbell has also written a nonfiction text, Suc-
cessful Women, Angry Men (1986), in which she
offers advice for men and women on coping with
relationships. To write this book, Campbell in-
terviewed more than 100 couples. A regular on
National Public Radio, Campbell has written
for the New York Times Book Review, and her ar-
ticles have been published in such well-known
black popular magazines as ESSENCE, Ebony, and
Black Enterprise. She has a daughter, Maia, and
was married to her husband, Ellis Gordon, Jr., for
more than 22 years. Bebe Moore Campbell (Gor-
don) died on November 27, 2006, from complica-
tions related to brain cancer.
Beverly A. TateCavalcade: Negro American Writing from
1760 to the Present Arthur P. Davis and
J. Saunders Redding, eds. (1971)
Arthur P. Davis and J. Saunders Redding, the sea-
soned literary giants of the African-American
literary tradition who compiled this groundbreak-
ing anthology, made their objectives lucidly clear
in their general introduction. Although there
had been several collections of “Negro Ameri-
can Writing,” they argued, “none had served as a
pedagogical function for students,” even the most
recent ones. They wrote, “None shows the evolu-
tion of this writing as literary art. None provides
the historical context that makes meaningful the
criticism of this writing as the expression of the
American Negro’s special experience and as a tool
of social and cultural diagnosis” (xvii). The editors’
objective, therefore, was to offer a comprehensive
volume of more than 200 years of literary contri-
butions by African Americans.
Moreover, Davis, who had joined with Sterling
A. Brown and Ulysses Lee to edit the groundbreak-
ing forerunner, The NEGRO CARAVAN, three decades
before, and Redding made it explicitly clear that
they had sought to compile “a balanced and im-
partial account” in making their selections. They
assured that “No author has been left out because
we disagree with his critical attitude, or his politics,
or his stand on certain issues”; and, conversely, “no
author had been included because he happens to
think as we do” (xvii).
Davis and Redding found it important to ex-
plain their use of the term “Negro writing.” Al-
though most black writers, they argued, wrote outCavalcade: Negro American Writing from 1760 to the Present 91