Toni Cade Bambara was a cultural worker, community organizer, writer, documentary filmmaker, and professor. She always centered on community and the arts with everything she did. The liberation of the community has always been the focus of her work and how she lived. She worked as a professor, lecturer, filmmaker, and screenwriter while maintaining her self-titled role as a  cultural worker. Her physical body ceased on December 9, 1995, but she and her work significantly impact the community across this country, internationally, and across generations. Bambara is the author of three short-story collections and two novels and the editor of two anthologies. In addition, she has written many essays and short stories that have appeared in several magazines and anthologies.

She is first, best known, and loved within these walls as a mother and grandmother. We honored her by continuing that legacy by creating the TCB Community Arts Center.

The Center will have a bookstore (sales and lending library) and a Cafe.

• Lead workshops and conversations on how to view art (via media in particular) from a critical lens.

• Provide spaces for community members to hold classes/meetings and have art displays.

• We will partner with local grass-root organizations on economic systems, transformative justice, mental health, and other vital and well-needed courses available to the community.

• We hope to one day expand to have a theater to hold readings, lectures, and film screenings.

 The Center will be created and led by Toni Cade Bambara’s daughter and granddaughter, Karma and Zoe.