“Even before they came out with the slogan of the Army, “Be all that you can be” was something we heard in our community.” 1 Rev. Robert Peter Campbell
Mr. Robert Peter Lee Campbell, known to most today as Reverend Campbell but known to those who grew up with him in his Northside neighborhood in Chapel Hill as Peter (or, to some from way back, “Peter Rabbit”), has lived by these words. On a very hot and humid July day in the community center that resulted largely from his decades-long, unrelenting activism, he talked candidly about his life in Chapel Hill and far beyond:
Robert Campbell: “So I went on to the Job Corps [in 1967] and … I graduated from auto mechanics cluster division and from the food service–what do they call it?–the food service, food handling personnel.”
Me (AW): “So you did both at the same time?”
RC: “I did both. … I didn’t know which one I was going to go in to. … But there was a desire for more. And I was trying to figure out what that desire was. Do I want to be in to culinary arts? Do I want to be a mechanic? And so I started dealing with art. And I ended up drawing this mural on the wall along [at the Job Corps training center] with three other people.”
AW: “In Kentucky?”
RC: “In Kentucky. I ended up drawing on the wall of the barracks. And it was of a tree and how it overshadowed everything even the hill, which it was growing on. And I think about it because it was one of the most colorful pieces of art that we had done. And it was at a time where the trees were changing color. And if you ever saw the maple trees in Kentucky and the birch trees in Kentucky change color, they are such a beautiful array of color when the sun is shining through. And that’s what that mural was.”
AW: “Beautiful.”
RC: “So I didn’t know if I wanted to be an artist. I did a little poetry writing, and things like that. I just – I tried to find myself.”
Finding oneself is what many young people set out to do in the sheltered environment of a college campus, experimenting and dabbling in different subjects, following different interests, testing to see which subjects strike a chord or light a fire.
A classic, liberal arts education was not an option for Reverend Campbell. Growing up black in Chapel Hill, home to the country’s first public university, he lived in a neighborhood bordering campus but had no access to its hallowed halls. The stone walls that separate the town from the campus might have been built by his ancestors but they stood for an unbridgeable divide. Some of the best jobs for blacks were in the campus dining halls; black kids with dreams of higher education, however, were banned from its classrooms and dorms.
But if that’s what he couldn’t be, he certainly made the most of what he could be.
Reverend Campbell found ways to explore many of his talents in those barracks in Kentucky, even if the more artistic ones were strictly extra-curricular. He may not have had a liberal arts education, but he took advantage of a very wide range of opportunities to learn a range of valuable skills from key figures in his community and wasn’t deterred by those outside his community who didn’t believe in him: “It was so many different components of life that we were introduced at a young age. … the practice of those professions, those jobs, instilled in us different type of skills.”
He learned masonry and construction from his uncles. In high school, he was introduced to the art and science of auto mechanics by legendary high school teacher and administrator R.D. Smith whom the kids called “Dog” because of his persistence in pushing kids to do more and work harder. He enlisted in the US Navy and learned how to make one hundred twenty different kinds of knots from a blue Navy manual. He also learned how to speak “Navy” and how to steer a ship within one degree of accuracy. And he learned cooking from his aunts, from home economics teachers, from cooks in downtown restaurants, and from a campus dining hall chef known to his staff as “Shorty Ryan.” As he puts it: “You just watched him, you know, to learn from him.” He remembers all of his teachers and mentors by name. To be all he could be meant lots of patient observation and hard work. He says, that’s what got him to the next level, whether on a Navy ship or in the kitchen.
He always had to think practically and find a way to make some money. There was no time to explore freely unless somehow the exploration was paid for and paid off. His skill set is the result of his needing to earn a living, which, by necessity, took priority over passion. When he was still going to school, he worked in the summers; when he returned from serving in the Vietnam War, he worked a series of jobs; and when the money from the GI bill ran out, he had to leave Durham Tech and work in various restaurants in town.
But, he says, there was a lot to learn from work itself, no matter the job: “And so, you know, it gave us a sense of believing, if you work hard and you do things right and you stay honest, you’ll make a good living.”
I couldn’t help but notice that Reverend Campbell often used “we” and “us” instead of “I” when he talked about what it was like growing up, going to school, hanging out, and working in Chapel Hill. It’s as though he always saw his own fate together with those of others in his community; his neighborhood friends shared info as well as stories, listened to the same elders, drew on experiences of others in the community, worked for those who could offer jobs, passed on the word.
In his Northside community, he learned that success was not to be achieved at the expense of or despite others but at least in part because of them. He is largely a self-educated and a community-educated man. And he has always paid his community back, with interest.
His grandparents, who raised him and his nine siblings, made it clear to him that he was no worse, but also no better, than any of the other kids; after all, perhaps one of those kids might be able to help you when you need it. Indeed, decades later in life, the efforts of a few key players — a young, female coworker who remembered him from the neighborhood and a prayer partner at Faith Tabernacle church on Rogers Road– helped the Reverend find his voice, literally.
Some time in the early 1980s, he did discover his life’s purpose and has been pursuing it ever since. This discovery occurred not on a campus or a job training program or on the job. For him, it occurred when, after a trying period in his life, a co-worker encouraged him to get his act together– body and spirit. He had gained weight and seemed lost, she noticed; so, she accompanied him to the fitness trail and encouraged him to rekindle his faith. Along the way, he became aware that he had a gift. Smiling broadly, the Reverend recalls the words of his Faith Tabernacle prayer partner: “He said, also relevant to what the young lady [his coworker] said, ‘You have a gift of gab.’ You listen to what people say and you respond. But you articulate something that they want to hear.”
He realized then that he had a passion for the environment and for social justice. And so the local environmental justice movement was born.
That was decades ago, but ever since that moment, he has been honing his skills, educating himself, perfecting his trade by attending workshops and addressing audiences up and down the East coast, using the “gift of gab,” as he humbly puts it, to galvanize others to action. He has earned a reputation as an orator, a craftsman of the spoken word, and an exceptional motivator and organizer.
And finally, he learned something that no school could teach– self-realization of a spiritual nature; not so much knowledge, as wisdom: “And I realized that even the professors and the politicians were not the great men. It was the congregation that we partnered with, because collaboration and partnership does greater work.”
And he means it. The Rogers Road Community Center, which has been serving hundreds of kids and their families; the new sewage system; the closing of the city dump in their neighborhood; the awareness and activism around environmental contamination– all this, Reverend Campbell adamantly insists, is due to the power of all of the neighbors and allies working together. 2 “I wanted to set a standard, that wherever I went and whatever I do, encourage the next one to do better.”
Talk about applying what you learn! That’s being all you can be … while helping others to also be all they can be.
The Words of Rev.C
To inspire others
you have to become the example.
You know what? I said,
people quoting scripture all the time.
I don’t want to be one of those
that can speak about scriptures,
quote scriptures
but the words have no relevance
to my life.
I said, if anything,
give me wisdom and knowledge and understanding
like Solomon.
I don’t know,
I transform the words.
Don’t stick me up under a bushel,
under a basket,
on the backside of a hill.
I want to be that light,
the light that shines
and illuminates the surroundings. 3
MIGHTY 