Born: June 30 1889, United States
Died: 2 April 1990
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Bertha Pitts
The following is republished from the Badass Womxn and Enbies in the Pacific Northwest Volume 3, in line with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. It was written by Alli Nemec (she/her).
Bertha Pitts Campbell was the epitome of a Badass in the Pacific Northwest. Campbell had many successes when it came to empowering women and fighting racism. She was born in 1889 and lived until 1990, which allowed for a plethora of accomplishments throughout her lifetime.
She attended Howard University in Washington, D.C. which is an HBCU. She then became one of the twenty-two women at Howard University to help found the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, which is now one of the largest African American sororities. Campbell was originally from Winfield, Kansas but she and her husband, Earl Campbell, who she met while working at Howard University, packed up to find employment in Seattle, Washington. That same year she helped to create to Alpha Omicron Chapter in Seattle for the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. To commemorate the suffrage march of 1913, she led 10,000 members of her sorority in a march in Washington, D.C.
Bertha Pitts Campbell was an avid supporter of equal rights and opportunities for African Americans which brought them to Seattle. Campbell, with a group of women from the Council of Churches, created the Christian Friends for Racial Equality organization. This was to ensure a smoother transition for the people of color in a world that, at the time, was rampant with white supremacy. She wanted to ensure baseline services would be available to the Black individuals moving there, such as hospital physicians and rental housing in the Seattle area.
Along with her efforts in creating organizations for equality, she also volunteered and became deeply involved with the Black community. She served on the first board of the Seattle Urban League, which was an organization that helps with community work to provide resources for Seattle’s African American community. Additionally, Campbell also was involved with the Young Women’s Christian Association YWCA which led her to work closely with the Phillis Wheatly Branch. She served four terms as the chairperson of the branch, known as East Cherry, and became the first ever Black woman to vote on the board. The YWCA created the Bertha Pitts Campbell Equity Awards, dedicated to her work done in the organization after her death, in order to celebrate young individuals who continue to shatter barriers just as she did.
It is crucial to note Campbell’s work received notable recognition. On May 11, 1987, she was honored for her work conducted over the course of her life by the Washington State House of Representatives. On Campbell’s 100th birthday, the King County Council announced a county wide acknowledgment of it being Bertha Pitts Campbell Day. She was honored throughout her life and had a tremendous impact on the Black community of Seattle as a whole.