November 28, 2006 @ 12:47 pm

Journalist Bebe Moore Campbell Dies

by: Mariel Concepcion

"Bebe was a passionate voice for Los Angeles," novelist Paula L. Woods said Monday according to the LA Times. "She wrote about the historical and social forces that make us rub against each other and spark. Her heart was in the African American community. "There will be a gap without her. Already, you feel that absence." As a novelist Campbell was attracted to strong female characters who were usually caught up in life-changing situations like complicated relationships, and took up such topics as racism and the problems of mental illness. In "72 Hour Hold" (2005), the main character was a woman struggling with family members and the healthcare system when her grown daughter becomes mentally ill. Campbell also wrote about mental illness in an unusual children's novel, "Sometimes My Mommy Gets Angry" (2002), about a little girl whose mother is unbalanced and erratic. Campbell was often compared to such literary masters as Anton Chekhov and Edith Wharton. right She also wrote a memoir, "Sweet Summer, Growing Up With and Without My Dad" (1989), about her young life as the daughter of divorced parents. She would spend the school year with her mother in Philadelphia and summer with her father, a paraplegic, in North Carolina. Campbell's first book, "Successful Women, Angry Men: Backlash in the Two Career Marriage" (1986), was nonfiction. Her journalistic articles appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Ebony magazine and elsewhere. Along with her best-selling author's status, she received an Image Award for Literature from the NAACP for her 1992 novel "Your Blues Ain't Like Mine" about the segregated Deep South. Born Elizabeth Bebe Moore in Philadelphia, she received a bachelor's degree in elementary education from the University of Pittsburgh before she began a career as a schoolteacher. She married Tiko Campbell, settled in Washington, D.C., and had a daughter, Maia Campbell, before the marriage ended in divorce. Campbell later married Ellis Gordon Jr., and they settled in Los Angeles. They had one son, Ellis Gordon III. In addition to her husband and two children, she is survived by her mother, Doris Moore, and two grandchildren. Contributions in her name can be made to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill at NAMI Urban Los Angeles, 4305 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008; or to the United Negro College Fund, 8260 Willow Oaks Corporate Park Drive, P.O. Box 10444, Fairfax, VA 22031. Funeral services are pending.

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