Misplaced Pages

Bärbel Kampmann (March 26, 1946 – October 27, 1999) was an Afro-German psychologist, writer, and civil servant. A well-known anti-racist activist in Germany, she led innovative integration programs in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia that served as a model for the rest of the country.

Early life

Bärbel Kampmann was born in Bielefeld, Germany, in 1946. Her father was an African American soldier, and her mother was a German woman from Bielefeld.

Her mother, Ilse Hilbert, had been a Nazi sympathizer, and her GI father left before Hilbert realized she was pregnant. As a child, she was forbidden to talk about her father. Her mother, along with her grandmother—who primarily raised her and often tried to protect her from racism—would try unsuccessfully to bleach her skin with Drula bleaching wax and hydrogen peroxide.

She was one of the first Afro-descendent children born in Germany after the end of Nazi rule, and she experienced a great deal of racism and isolation in her youth, including physical violence from other children.

Career

After studying at a teachers' college in Cologne and working as a secondary school teacher, during which time she was an active trade unionist, Kampmann obtained a psychology degree from Ruhr University Bochum. She worked as a clinical therapist, primarily serving black Germans and migrants.

Kampmann settled in the German city of Gelsenkirchen, where beginning in 1986 she worked for the regional government to promote the welfare of migrant children and other young people. She was then promoted to the government in the regional capital of Düsseldorf, where she worked on issues of integration and discrimination in the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.

Her work in the North Rhine-Westphalia government on anti-discrimination projects was used as a model across Germany. These trend-setting efforts were noted for their then-novel emphasis on actually centering the perspectives of those facing discrimination.

She was a well-known anti-racist activist within the Afro-German community, considered a central champion of integration in this period. She was known for leading anti-racist workshops and founded the Gelsenkirchen Days Against Racism. She was also involved with ADEFRA, a black women's organization in Germany, and the Initiative of Black People in Germany [de]. In addition to her anti-racist and pro-migrant activism, Kampmann was also markedly anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist.

Kampmann wrote a number of essays on the experiences of minorities in Germany, notably "Schwarze Deutsche. Lebensrealität und Probleme einer wenig beachteten Minderheit", in the 1994 book Andere Deutsche. Zur Lebenssituation von Menschen multiethnischer und multikultureller Herkunft.

Personal life

Kampmann's first marriage ended in divorce, in part due to the stigma against interracial relationships at the time. She later remarried, wedding fellow psychologist Harald Gerunde.

In her late thirties, Kampmann traveled to the United States in search of her father, John T. Ballinger, whom she was eventually able to meet. However, she found herself disillusioned with the United States and began traveling instead to Guinea, where she came to feel particularly at home.

Death and legacy

After falling ill, Kampmann died in 1999 in Gelsenkirchen, at age 53.

Her husband Harald Gerunde wrote a biography of her titled Eine von uns: Als Schwarze in Deutschland geboren (One of us: Born Black in Germany) in 2000.

In 2020, a street in Bremen was named in her honor.

References

1. ^ "Bärbel Kampmann". Gelsenkirchener Geschichten (in German). Retrieved 2021-03-29.
2. ^ "Nachruf auf Bärbel Kampmann". Vorstand und Mitglieder der Initiative Schwarze Deutsche & Schwarze in Deutschland, ISD-NRW (in German). 1999-11-08. Archived from the original on 2007-01-30.
3. ^ "Bärbel Kampmann". Unrast Verlag (in German). Retrieved 2021-03-29.
4. ^ Mesghena, Mekonnen (2000-12-04). "Harald Gerunde: Eine von uns. Als Schwarze in Deutschland geboren". Deutschlandfunk (in German). Retrieved 2021-03-29.
5. ^ Locating African European studies : interventions, intersections, conversations. Felipe Espinoza Garrido. Abingdon, Oxon. 2020. ISBN 978-0-429-49109-2. OCLC 1127643432.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
6. ^ Wall, Christina Noelle (2014). "American Blackness and Vergangenheitsbewältigung in Twenty-first Century German Literature and Film" (PDF). University of Maryland, College Park.
7. Ani, Ekpenyong (2006-05-01). ""Say it loud!" Afro-Diasporische Lebensgeschichten im deutschen Kontext". Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung (in German). Archived from the original on 2020-08-08. Retrieved 2021-03-29.
8. ^ Wilke, Simon (2020-06-10). "Bismarckstraße in Bremen: Falsche Adressen bei Bahn und Versicherung". WESER-KURIER (in German). Archived from the original on 2020-06-15. Retrieved 2021-03-29.
9. "Audre Lorde – Bestärkung und Bestätigung". Marion Kraft | Afro-deutsche Autorin – Literaturwissenschaftlerin (in German). Archived from the original on 2014-11-26. Retrieved 2021-03-29.
10. Florvil, Tiffany N. (2016-07-27). "ANN: Black Germany and Austria Bibliography". H-Black-Europe. Retrieved 2021-03-29.
11. ^ Poikāne-Daumke, Aija (2006). African diasporas: Afro-German literature in the context of the African American experience. Berlin: Lit. ISBN 978-3-8258-9612-6. OCLC 86075032.
12. "Eine von uns : als Schwarze in Deutschland geboren". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on 2020-11-08. Retrieved 2021-03-29.
13. Beneke, Maren (2020-03-08). "Erst der Empfang, dann die Demo". WESER-KURIER (in German). Archived from the original on 2020-03-09. Retrieved 2021-03-29.

• 1946 births
• 1999 deaths
• German women psychologists
• German women activists
• 20th-century German women writers
• 20th-century German civil servants
• German women civil servants
• German human rights activists
• Women human rights activists
• Writers from Bielefeld
• German people of African-American descent
• 20th-century German psychologists