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Black Faculty
William (Bil) Banks, African American Studies Department
Part of the Bancroft Oral History Center's African American Faculty and Senior Staff Series. "Professor Banks joined UC Berkeley’s faculty in 1971 in what was then called the Afro American Studies Program. The Program, as part of the Third World College, had been created in response to the Third World Strike of 1969 specifically, and generally, the social movements that defined the 1960’s. Banks played a pivotal, and controversial, role in the direction that the Program took as he became its first ladder rank faculty person, then Director of the Program, and guided the program to departmental status in the College of Letters and Science. He was named chair of the department in 1974. In this interview he shares his perspectives on the birth and the evolution of the African American Studies Department, the culture of UC Berkeley as an institution, the social movements of the 1960’s and seventies, and higher education in the United States."
David Blackwell, Department of Mathematics
Part of the Bancroft Oral History Center's African American Faculty and Senior Staff Series. "David Blackwell was born in 1919 in Centralia, Illinois. He went on to become a great mathematical thinker and made fundamental contributions to the areas of probability theory, mathematical statistics, set theory and logic, and of course, game theory, to name a few." Professor Blackwell came to UC Berkeley in 1954 after a decade at Howard University in Washington D.C. and he became a full professor in 1955.
Robert H. Bragg, Material Science Department
Professor Robert H. "Pete" Bragg came to UC Berkeley in 1969 from the private sector to serve as professor of Material Science and Mineral Engineering, one of six African American faculty on campus. His major areas of research were x-ray physics and applications to research on materials, electronic properties of carbon materials, and the mechanism of graphitization. This interview follows his trajectory from his early life in Tennessee and Chicago, through military service, graduate school and early professional experiences in the private sector, and finally, on to Berkeley.
Troy Duster, Sociology Department
Part of the Bancroft Oral History Center's African American Faculty and Senior Staff Series. "Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Chancellor's Professor Troy Duster came to Berkeley in 1967 from UC Riverside, just on the heels of Berkeley's Free Speech Movement and in advance of the Third World Strike. At Berkeley, Duster played a central role in leading curricular innovation and in building structures to promote and sustain diversity among faculty and students on campus. He consulted closely with University and student leadership to work through major political struggles on campus, including the Third World Strike and the development of the American Cultures requirement, of which he was a Director. He served as Director of the Institute for the Study of Social Change and principal investigator for Berkeley's Diversity Project. Professor Duster's research and writing ranges across the sociology of law, deviance, knowledge, inequality, race, science, and education, and is bound by the common thread of interrogating the normative frames that create and organize taxonomies of information and power. Duster's contributions to the area of biogenetic research are critical in shaping scientific inquiry around race, ethnicity, and genetics. Professor Duster brings to this oral history both his very human lived experiences combined with his analytic frame as a sociologist and scholar. In this interview Duster situates his own life and trajectory, and that of his generation, against a backdrop of social transformation that reaches from the pre-Civil Rights era to our present moment as we entertain the notion of a post racial society. This interview reveals his acute clarity about the anatomy of structural inequality and institutional discrimination, what these are made of and how they function, and the potential for strategic interventions. Professor Duster fought hard and creatively to increase access for minorities and women at UC Berkeley. Significant themes of this oral history are: a perspective on the University of California's institutional history from the vantage point of someone who worked for change from within the administration, a perspective on how and why affirmative action policies and programs were built and dismantled, gender and racial discrimination and academic culture, and curricular transformation catalyzed by the social movements of the 1960's."
Harry Edwards, Sociology Department
Part of the Bancroft Oral History Center's African American Faculty and Senior Staff Series. "Professor Harry Edwards joined UC Berkeley’s department of sociology in 1971. He conducted pioneering scholarship in the area of sociology of race and sport and is also renowned for his involvement in the famous Black Power salute on the victory podium at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. Edwards has long been a controversial figure at UC Berkeley. In fact, several of the narrators interviewed in this series point to his 1974 tenure case when discussing curricular transformation and discrimination in hiring and promotion."
William Russell Ellis, Department of Architecture
Professor Ellis joined UC Berkeley's Department of Architecture in 1970, where he taught, researched, and innovated in the intersection of sociology and architecture. He subsequently played a significant role in university administration, serving as Vice Chancellor of Undergraduate Affairs and Faculty Equity Associate, a position for which he emerged temporarily from retirement. Ellis was raised in Los Angeles and educated at Compton High School and UCLA where he gained significant recognition as an athlete before going on to become a scholar and professor of sociology. Ellis emphasized over the course of his interview that his is a California story that reflects this state's social history and diverse population. At Berkeley, he has worked to support and grow a student population that reflects this state's diversity. In this interview Professor Ellis reflects on UC Berkeley and the life and times that led him here. Significant themes include: a perspective on the University of California's institutional history from the vantage point of someone who worked for change from within the administration, a perspective on how and why affirmative action policies and programs were built and dismantled, gender and racial discrimination and academic culture, and curricular transformation catalyzed by the social movements of the 1960's. Professor Ellis' trajectory reflects that of a generation of African American scholars and professionals. For many in this cohort, athletic excellence and/or military service were the mechanics of mobility that allowed them to circumvent structural racism and gain access to formerly segregated institutions of higher education. Against the changing backdrop of America's racial landscape during the ‘60s and ‘70s, Ellis and his peers leapt far beyond what had been possible for their parents and previous generations and were central in efforts to create mechanisms to increase access for minorities and women who followed them in the academy.
Jewelle Taylor Gibbs, School of Social Welfare
Part of the Bancroft Oral History Center's African American Faculty and Senior Staff Series. "Jewelle Taylor Gibbs started as assistant professor at the University of California School of Social Welfare in 1979, became an associate professor in 1983, a full professor in 1986, and was appointed to the endowed chair as Zellerbach Family Fund Professor of Social Policy, Community Change and Practice in 1993, a position she held until her retirement in 2000. During these years Professor Gibbs wrote influential articles and books on a wide range of topics including minority mental health, young black men in America, and the O.J. Simpson and Rodney King cases;she was a visiting scholar in the United States and abroad;and she mentored a generation of students and faculty. She received the highest academic honor at the University of California, the Berkeley Citation, and testified before Congress. Professor Gibbs had returned to graduate school when her sons were in high school;her life has followed a trajectory instructive and inspirational for women who raise their families and occupy careers which impact the public sphere in significant ways. Professor Gibbs' committee work and professional trajectory offers insight into the culture and mechanics of change within the academy."
Henrietta Harris, Drama Department
San Jose native Henrietta Harris taught courses in UC Berkeley's Drama department from 1954-1969. A formally trained classical singer and performer, she toured Europe and the United States performing a repertoire of German lieder, art songs, and spirituals. Ultimately she left the world of music for her passion: theatre. In 1964, she founded the Aldridge Players West, a pioneering black theatre ensemble that performed in San Francisco and toured historically black schools in the South.
Reginald Lanier Jones, African American Studies and Education Departments
Professor Reginald Jones joined UC Berkeley's faculty in 1973 as professor of African American Studies and adjunct professor of Education. His work pushed the educational psychology field, challenging and debunking ideas held particularly with regard to minority and disabled children. He was committed to developing and nurturing future scholars in the field of psychology.
William Lester, Chemistry Department
Professor William A. Lester, Jr., joined UC Berkeley’s chemistry department in 1981, after having worked in the government and private sectors. He earned his B.S. at the University of Chicago and M.S. at the University of Chicago;and in 1964 he earned his Ph.D. at Catholic University of America. As director of the National Resource for Computation in Chemistry, he led the nation’s first umbrella group for chemists, which pioneered and disseminated new computation methodologies. His research work is focused on theoretical studies of the electronic structure of molecules, an area in which he and his research group work to extend the quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) to the range of problems that form the domain of quantum chemistry. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. At UC Berkeley, he served as the Faculty Athletics Representative from 1999 through 2004 and associate dean of the College of Chemistry from 1991 to 1995. Like others interviewed as part of this series, his life and work has spanned several critical shifts in higher education in the United States. In this interview, he discusses his life and work in science during a time of social and technological change.
Margaret Wilkerson, Dramatic Arts and African American Studies Departments
Margaret Wilkerson came to UC Berkeley in 1968 as a PhD student in the drama department. Upon completing her dissertation on the topic of black theater groups on the West Coast, she began teaching at UC Berkeley. Over the course of thirty years at Berkeley, Wilkerson taught in and chaired both the Dramatic Arts and African American Studies departments and served as the Director of the Center for the Study, Education and Advancement of Women, before retiring and taking up her current post as the Director of the Ford Foundation’s Media, Arts, and Culture Program. This interview contains her reflections on the times in which she came of age, her research—black theater and the life of Lorraine Hansberry, and UC Berkeley, which she had the opportunity to experience from a few different vantage points, as a professor with multiple affiliations and as a student.
OIly Wilson, Music Department
Olly W. Wilson was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1937. His higher education includes a B.M. degree from Washington University, St. Louis, 1959;Master of Music degree from the Univ. of Illinois 1960;and the Ph.D. degree from the Univ. of Iowa, 1964. Wilson also played jazz piano with local groups in St. Louis and was a member of several orchestras as a string bass player, including the St. Louis Philharmonic orchestra and the Cedar Rapids Symphony. He studied electronic music at the University of Illinois and has held faculty positions at Florida A & M University (1960-62, 1964-65) Oberlin Conservatory of Music (1965 -1970) and the University of California, Berkeley (from 1970 until his retirement in 2002). His compositions include chamber works, orchestral works and works for the electronic media.
Black Alumni
