Savoring the Salt: The Legacy of Toni Cade Bambara
Edited by
Linda J. Holmes and Cheryl A. Wall
With a Foreword by Pearl Cleage
July 2006
Annotation: * means previously published

Savoring the Salt: The Legacy of Toni Cade Bambara
Table of Contents

Foreword            Pearl Cleage

Linda J. Holmes and
Cheryl A. Wall        Introduction

Linda J. Holmes        "Poised for the Light"

Cheryl A. Wall        "Toni's Obligato: Bambara and the African American
                Literary Tradition"

Part I - Writing From Laughter, Writing From Rage


Toni Cade Bambara        "A Sort of Preface" from Gorilla, My Love*

Salamishah Tillett        "'Straight-Up Fiction': Sittin' Down with Gorilla, My Love"

Kalamu ya Salaam        "Searching for the Mother Tongue" *

Eleanor Traylor        "The Language of Soul in Toni Cade Bambara's Re/Conceived Academy"

Anne Wicke            Bambara in Translation

Valerie Boyd            "'She was just outrageously brilliant': Toni Morrison remembers

                Toni Cade Bambara"*

Nikky Finney            "The Making of Paper"*

Part II - "Making Revolution Irresistible"

Toni Cade Bambara        From The Vietnam Notebooks

Jayne Cortez            "Toni. . . she was who she was"

Amiri Baraka            "Make the Revolution!"*

Beverly Guy-Sheftall        Black Feminist Foremother *

Paula J. Giddings        "At the edge of the world"

Farah Jasmine Griffin        "How do you measure a revolution?"

Kristin Hunter Lattany    "Drive This Thing"

Part III - Teaching Usable Truths

Toni Cade Bambara        From "The Children Who Got Cheated"*

Audre Lorde            "Dear Toni" [poem] *

Nikki Giovanni        "We Drove Together"

Linda J. Holmes        "Lessons in Boldness 101"

Jan Carew            "A Timeless Truthteller"

Pepsi Charles            "T.C.B. -- Taking Care of Business"

Rudolph Byrd            "The Feeling of Transport"

Abena Busia            "Teaching Toni Cade Bambara Teaching"

Ruby Dee            Poem*

Part IV - Guerrilla Filmmaking

Toni Cade Bambara        "Why Black Cinema?"*

Aishah Shadidah Simmons    "Asserting My In(ter)dependence: The Evolution of No!"

Frances NegrÓn-Mutaner    "Things That Toni Taught Me": A Filmmaker Reflects

Part V - "Having to be whole to see whole"

Toni Cade Bambara        From Those Bones Are Not My Child*

Bettina Aptheker        Toni Cade Bambara: A Political Life of the Spirit

Avery Gordon        "something more powerful than skepticism"*

Sonia Sanchez        "Remembering and Honoring Toni Cade Bambara" [Poem]*

Promotional Information

An anthology that celebrates the life and work of a major African American writer

About the Author

Linda Janet Holmes is a writer, independent scholar, and activist. She is also co-author of Listen To Me Good: The Life Story of an Alabama Midwife.

Cheryl A. Wall is Professor of English at Rutgers University, and the author of Worrying the Line: Black Women Writers, Lineage, and Literary Tradition, and Women of the Harlem Renaissance. She is the editor of The Writings of Zora Neale Hurston (2 volumes) and Changing Our Own Words: Criticism, Theory, and Writing by Black Women.

Reviews

"This is a moving tribute to a seminal figure of American literature whose work continues to resonate." Booklist Oct. 07 "Nikki Giovanni, Amiri Baraka, Pearl Cleage and other African American luminaries remember the late writer and activist [Toni Cade Bambara]. What emerges is a portrait of a brilliant wordsmith and tireless revolutionary who 10 years after her death, is missed, says Cleage, 'each and every day.' Ms Magazine 2007 "This volume is a tribute to the legacy of Bambara, an appreciation of her work, and a celebration of her life and contribution to contemporary American literature and social consciousness. Editors Holmes, Bambara's former student and a successful writer, and Wall, a writer and Rutgers University English professor, assembled the voices of distinguished art and literary personalities like Amiri Baraka, Abena Busia, Sonia Sanchez, Eleanor Taylor, Audre Lorde, Rudolph Byrd, actor Ruby Dee, and many more. They all write insightfully and affectionately, as they celebrate a truly genuine writer and social activist who made no apologies for being black and female. Recommended for public and academic libraries" Library Journal "These carefully selected ruminations by Bambara's peers stand as a testament to her and the impact of her iconoclastic vision and style...Savoring the Salt provides fond memories of an incandescent spirit." Filmbill "These personal reflections, scholarly essays, poems, interviews, and photographs--many previously unpublished--pay high tribute to Bambara...[T]he volume provides a comprehensive approach to Bambara's life and work. Recommended." Choice