• Bebe Moore Campbell

    Minority Mental Health Month 2023

    Thank you everyone who attended and supported our 20th Anniversary & Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month Celebration 2023!!!

     

    Bebe Moore Campbell was an author, advocate, co-founder of Nami Urban Los Angeles and national spokesperson, who worked tirelessly to advocate for mental health education and eliminate the stigma among diverse communities, until she passed away in 2006. In 2005, inspired by Campbell’s effort to end stigma and provide mental health information, longtime friend Linda Wharton-Boyd suggested dedicating a month every year to her efforts. The duo got to work, outlining the concept of National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month and what it would entail. After Campbell’s passing, Wharton-Boyd, friends, family and allied advocates reignited their cause. In 2008, July was designated as the Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month by the U.S. House of Representatives.
    "It’s not shameful to have a mental illness. Get treatment. Recovery is possible,” said Bebe Moore Campbell.
  • NAMI Urban LA 20th Anniversary Video Documentary July 2023

     

  • Her Story

    "It’s not shameful to have a mental illness. Get treatment. Recovery is possible!"

    - Bebe Moore Campbell.

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    Bebe Moore Campbell was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was the author of three New York Times bestsellers: Brothers and Sisters, Singing in the Comeback Choir, and What You Owe Me, which was also a Los Angeles Times "Best Book of 2001". Her other works include the novel Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and the winner of the NAACP Image Award for Literature; her memoir, Sweet Summer: Growing Up With and Without My Dad; and her first nonfiction book, Successful Women, Angry Men: Backlash in the Two-Career Marriage. Her essays, articles, and excerpts appear in many anthologies.

     

    Campbell's interest in mental health was the catalyst for her first children's book, Sometimes My Mommy Gets Angry, which was published in September 2003. This book won the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Outstanding Literature Award for 2003. The book tells the story of how a little girl copes with being reared by her mentally ill mother. Her book 72 Hour Hold also deals with mental illness. Her first play, Even with the Madness, debuted in New York City in June 2003. This work revisited the theme of mental illness and the family.

     

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    In her early days she graduated from the Philadelphia High School for Girls and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in elementary education from the University of Pittsburgh. She was an honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

     

    She lived in Los Angeles, California, with her husband, Ellis Gordon Jr. They raised two children, a son, Ellis Gordon III, and a daughter, actress Maia Campbell, from Campbell's previous marriage to Tiko Campbell. Maia Campbell is best known for her role as "Tiffany" on In the House. Bebe Moore Campbell died from brain cancer, aged 56, on November 27, 2006, and was interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood, California. Her favorite quote on being a writer was: "Discipline is the servant of inspiration."

  • Bebe Moore Campbell Minority Mental Health Awareness Month Celebration

    2022 - Jul 24th

    Honoring Bebe Moore Campbell: Supporting Mental Health Needs in Diverse Communities

    - July 29, 2021

    NAMI Urban Los Angeles Cofounder Nancy Carter tells the story of how she and Bebe Moore Campbell started their NAMI affiliate and Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month.