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.
[5] 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.
[1][2] 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.
[6] 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.
[1][2][3] 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.