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Originally from Youngstown, Ohio (US), while raising her family, Campbell’s faith led her to become deeply involved in social issues in the Cleveland area. Her home became a crossroads for various activists, particularly those involved in the quest for racial justice and the end to the Vietnam war. Amongst many other causes, she worked hard to help Clevelanders elect the first Black mayor of a major American city, the Honorable Carl Stokes, in 1967.
At age 49, the National Baptist Church, Rev. Dr Martin Luther King’s denomination, was first to ordain Campbell to Christian ministry. Soon after, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) recognized her ordination. She was later also ordained by the American Baptist Church. She was the first woman to serve as the assistant executive director of the Greater Cleveland Interchurch Council. She was the first woman to serve as the executive director of the US Office of the World Council of Churches (WCC).
Rev. Dr. Angelique Walker-Smith, WCC president from North America, recalled how Campbell played a catalytic role in her career. “She heard about me, wrote me, and came to my installation in Trenton, NJ,” recalled Walker-Smith. “She told me my destiny was something very important in the ecumenical movement and sought to send me to Geneva already! She was truly a lioness who paved the way for so many.”
Campbell was the first ordained woman to serve as the general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. She was the first woman to serve as the director of religion at the Chautauqua Institution.
In these various roles, Campbell participated in several high-profile causes and events. She led a delegation to meet with Pope John Paul II, to present His Holiness with a copy of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. She was part of the delegation led by US president William Clinton to attend the funeral of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel. Along with her friend, Rev. Jesse Jackson, she traveled to Belgrade during the Balkan wars and negotiated the release of imprisoned American soldiers, working with the Serbian Orthodox Church. She and Carl Sagan, the renowned astronomer, helped cofound the National Religious Partnership for the Environment. She served as an election observer when Nelson Mandela was elected as the first Black president of South Africa. She was the only woman in the procession of over 200 clergy at the enthronement of Desmond Tutu as the archbishop of the Anglican Church in South Africa. Towards the end of her tenure at the National Council of Churches, a young Cuban boy named Elian Gonzalez survived a shipwreck and ended up in the home of relatives in Miami. Working with the Clinton administration, the Cuban government, and the Cuban churches, she helped negotiate Elian’s safe return to his family in Cuba.
Archbishop Tutu called Joan “a woman of courage and compassion. She helped put an end to the evil of apartheid."
She won numerous awards. Amongst them was the Walter Cronkite Faith and Freedom award from the Interfaith Alliance. She has been inducted into the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame and the Ohio Civil Rights Hall of Fame. She has received 14 honorary degrees from institutions as diverse as Wake Forest University, Saint Bonaventure University, and Monrovia University in Liberia.
