On a recent June evening at Alumni House, two of Berkeley’s most influential thinkers, Dr. Harry Edwards and Dr. Troy Duster, sat down for a profound Juneteenth conversation. The event, hosted by the Cal Alumni Association, wasn’t just a celebration of history, it was a reckoning with it. A conversation shaped by decades of activism, scholarship, and lived experience.
The evening opened with warmth and gravity. Dr. Edwards and Dr. Duster, longtime colleagues and friends, settled into their chairs. What unfolded wasn’t a lecture, but a living archive, one shaped by memory, protest, purpose, and the unrelenting pursuit of justice. From the political fires of the 1960s to today’s cultural frontlines, they reminded us that history doesn’t live behind us. It walks with us. It speaks.
Dr. Troy Duster recalled his days at UC Berkeley in the early 1970s, just before Dr. Edwards arrived. It was, as he described, a time of tension, transformation, and Black faculty solidarity. Ronald Reagan was governor and tensions were high over Dr. Edwards’s appointment. Yet, in that crucible, Dr. Duster found community, and purpose. He shared how a group of Black faculty came together to welcome Dr. Edwards despite political pressure from the state. It was an act of defiance and dignity. In those early days, Dr. Duster helped cultivate an academic space that valued resistance and intellectual rigor, a vision that would come to define Berkeley in that era. It was a formative moment not just for his career, but for the university’s evolving identity.
Dr. Edwards spoke with characteristic clarity about what brought him into the work: the need to challenge injustice in places people often overlook. For him, that place was sports. The Olympic Project for Human Rights, co-founded by Dr. Edwards, was the moral engine behind the famous Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics. It wasn’t just a moment of defiance. It was a statement: Black lives, even at the height of global celebration, were still marked by struggle.
But the evening didn’t stay in the past. It couldn’t. Not when today’s struggles, police violence, educational inequities, voting rights, women’s reproductive freedoms, feel like echoes of battles we were told had been won. “There are no final victories,” Dr. Edwards said, with a calm certainty that seemed to land in every chest. “Only continuing struggles.” He pointed to the current political climate, one marked by rollback threats to civil rights protections and bodily autonomy, as proof that progress is fragile. The victories of the past, he reminded the audience, were not end points but checkpoints. And the fight, in many ways, has just changed shape.
The discussion touched deeply on the ways Black resistance has evolved, from the sit-ins of the civil rights movement to the decentralized force of the Black Lives Matter era. Both scholars acknowledged the new energy and new strategies of today’s generation, while also pointing to the importance of historical memory. The fight is different, yes. But it is also the same. As Dr. Edwards described, the methods may have changed, hashtags and social media may now mobilize the masses, but the core questions remain: Who gets to be safe? Who gets to be free? And who has the power to decide?
They spoke candidly about fear, how it was a constant companion, especially during the height of their visibility as public Black intellectuals. Dr. Duster recounted moments when Dr. Edwards brought him stacks of death threats. Their calm in the face of threats wasn’t bravado. It was survival. It was knowing when to speak and when to listen. It was choosing to act not because fear was absent, but because justice mattered more.
That night, audience members weren’t just witnesses. They were participants in a legacy. During the Q&A, alumni, students, and community members asked questions not out of politeness, but out of urgency. How do we act now? How do we sustain the work without losing ourselves to fatigue or despair? How do we ensure that this moment becomes momentum?
The response wasn’t prescriptive. It was personal. “History tells us how we engaged,” Dr. Duster said. “We have to let it inform how we go forward.” In other words: We’ve been here before. The machinery of oppression isn’t new. But neither is the will to dismantle it.
What made the evening unforgettable wasn’t just the weight of what was said, but the way it was said. There was warmth. There was laughter. There was reverence. At times, Dr. Edwards’s voice carried the booming edge of the protestor. At others, Dr. Duster’s measured cadence brought stillness and clarity. Together, they were a masterclass in Black intellectual tradition, how it lives in academia, yes, but also in community, in resistance, and in deep, generational care.
By the end of the evening, the room wasn’t quiet, it was charged. What began as a commemoration became a call to action. Not in the abstract, but in the everyday: show up, speak out, support, study, mentor, organize. Whatever you do, don’t shrink back.
This Juneteenth Fireside Chat wasn’t about nostalgia. It was about transmission. It was a reminder that the past is a teacher, the present is a responsibility, and the future, uncertain as it is, is always being shaped by what we choose to do now.
We thank Dr. Edwards and Dr. Duster not only for showing up, but for showing us how to RISE.
