Background

Janet Cheatham Bell was born on May 10, 1937, in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. She is the daughter of Smith and Annie Cheatham.

Education

In 1964 Janet Cheatham Bell received a Bachelor of Science degree from Indiana University Bloomington. From 1970 to 1971 she attended California State University, Hayward (now California State University, East Bay) and Stanford University from 1971 to 1973.

Career

Janet Cheatham Bell began her professional career as a high school librarian in Saginaw, Michigan. In early 1968 she accepted a position at the Ohio University Library in Athens. A few months later, in the wake of student responses to Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, the university recruited her to teach freshman composition and African American literature.

Bell left Ohio University in 1970 to work as associate editor of The Black Scholar in Sausalito, California. Several months later she accepted the position of research associate for the African and Afro-American Studies Program at Stanford University where she worked with the director and eminent scholar, the late St. Clair Drake. Under the auspices of Dr. Drake's Multi Ethnic Education Resource Center, they published Teaching Black: an Evaluation of Methods and Resources in 1972.

In 1974 she became an Ethnic Studies Consultant for the Indiana Department of Education in Indianapolis. The position was created to take advantage of her particular skills and experience. In late 1978 she moved to Boston to assist Ginn & Company, textbook publishers in Lexington, Massachusetts, to develop, edit and make their series of literature anthologies for grades seven through twelve more inclusive. That was her last full-time position. She resigned in 1984 and moved to Chicago where she became an entrepreneur and established Sabayt Publications to publish her own books.

She is the author of Famous Black Quotations (1995), Victory of the Spirit (1996), The Soul of Success (1997), Stretch Your Wings: Famous Black Quotations for Teens (1999), etc.

Achievements

• Janet Cheatham Bell is best known as the author of Famous Black Quotations. Her works received high praise from critics and readers.

Works

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  • Till Victory Is Won: Famous Black Quotations From the NAACP

    (Taking its title from the moving lyrics of the official s...)

    2002
  • Victory of the Spirit

    (Sharing words of wisdom, comfort, hope, joy, nurture, and...)

    1996
  • Stretch Your Wings: Famous Black Quotations for the Young

    (A collection of Black quotations and African proverbs, ar...)

    1999
  • Famous Black Quotations

    (Two popular books - Famous Black Quotations and Famous Bl...)

    1995
  • The Time and Place That Gave Me Life

    (Janet Cheatham Bell’s riveting memoir recounts her experi...)

    2007
  • The Soul of Success: Inspiring Quotations for Entrepreneurs

    (The Soul of Success is a combination of the most profound...)

    1997
  • Not All Poor People Are Black

    (Black folks take whites much too seriously. (Except for t...)

    2014
  • Mixed Marriage: A Memoir

    (It was the sixties. Everything was changing. People were ...)

    2018

Membership

Janet Cheatham Bell is a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Authors Guild.

Connections

Janet Cheatham Bell has a son, Walter Kamau Bell.

Father:

Smith Cheatham

Mother:

Annie Cheatham

Son:

Walter Kamau Bell

References

• Contemporary Authors
  2010
• The official website of Janet Cheatham Bell