August 06, 2015 

LAWT News Service 

 

View Park Library will soon be named after one of the community’s most distinguished residents: the late bestselling novelist and advocate for the mentally ill, Bebe Moore Campbell.

 

The county Board of Super­visors unanimously approved the change on August 4, on a motion by Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas.

 

“Bebe Moore Campbell was an accomplished journalist and author who, through her writing, engaged in tireless and undaunted efforts to confront racism and challenge the stigma associated with mental illness,” he said. “Her legacy of raising awareness for important social issues certainly will not be forgotten.”

 

Ms. Campbell authored four New York Times bestsellers: Brothers and Sisters, Singing in the Come Back Choir, What You Owe Me, and 72 Hour Hold.  She also wrote the Los Angeles Times bestseller and New York Times notable book of the year, Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine, for which she won an Image Award for literature from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

 

Her byline has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Essence, Ebony, Black Enter­prise, and many other publications.

 

Campbell was also the co-founder of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)-Inglewood, now known as NAMI Urban Los Angeles.

 

She died in 2006 of complications from brain cancer. She was 56.

 

In 2008, the US. House of Representatives passed a bill declaring the month of July as “Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month.”

Category: Education