Items

• Interview: Clarke, Cheryl, 2012

  Cheryl Clarke is a black lesbian feminist whose poetry, editorial work, and career at Rutgers have had a significant impact on black, lesbian, and women’s communities. She is the author of four collections of poetry, often centered around themes of black women’s issues and lesbian issues. She served as an editor of the lesbian publication Conditions for nine years and began working at Rutgers University in 1970. At Rutgers, she served as the founding Director of Diverse Community Affairs and Lesbian/Gay Concerns, which became the Office of Social Justice Education and LGBT Communities in 2004. She was the Dean of Students of Livingston Campus between 2009-2013 and retired from Rutgers in 2013 after 41 years of service. In this interview, Clarke discusses her upbringing in Washington, D.C. during the Civil Rights Movement, her passion for writing, and the role of feminism. Clarke proposes the idea that we, as a society, must be in the “project of transformation” to “create a new humanity” as we reconcile gender and race issues. --- See also an additional interview with Cheryl Clarke, recorded in 2018 by the Rutgers Oral History Archives.
• Interview: Cooper, Brittney, 2015

  Brittney Cooper is Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers University. She is a Black feminist theorist who specializes in the study of Black women’s intellectual history, Hip Hop generation feminism, and race and gender representation in popular culture. Dr. Cooper is also a sought-after public speaker and commentator, her work and words have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, TV Guide, the Los Angeles Times, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry Show, All In With Chris Hayes, Disrupt with Karen Finney, and Third Rail on Al-Jazeera America, among many others. She is also a co-founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective, a popular feminist blog. Dr. Brittney Cooper is a proud alumna of Howard University (class of 2002) and a proud native of North Louisiana. In this interview, Dr. Cooper speaks about her day-to-day work as an Assistant Professor in the Women’s and Gender Studies and Africana Studies departments. Including her work as a “hip hop feminist” and the book she had just finished at the time "Race Women: Gender and the Making of a Black Public Intellectual Tradition"(published as: "Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women"). She continues with speaking about her experiences as a Black Woman in her field and the challenges she faces, the different types of activism she partakes in, and ends the interview speaking about her college experience and the lessons she has learned.
• Interview: Cross, June, 2015

  June Cross is a writer and documentary producer who covers the intersection of poverty, race, and politics in the United States. She has been a Professor of Journalism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York since 2006. There, she founded and directed the program in Journalistic Documentary at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. At the time of this interview, Cross had just finished her Emmy-nominated documentary Wihemina’s War which follows a Southern grandmother who struggles to help her granddaughter survive the health risks and social stigma of living with HIV in South Carolina. She has been a fellow at Columbia’s Institute for Research in Afro-American Studies, at Carnegie-Mellon University’s School of Urban and Public Affairs, and the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Studies at Harvard. In this interview, Cross speaks about her childhood growing up in Atlantic City in the 1950s. She then speaks about her painful College experience and the impact the women in her life had on Cross’s goals and sense of self. The interview closes with Cross speaking about her experience in journalism, her experience as a professor, and advice for women who plan to have careers in media.
• Interview: Davis, Michellene, 2017

  Michellene Davis, Esq. is the President and CEO of National Medical Fellowships and former Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Barnabas Health. Davis is an Honors graduate of Seton Hall University and holds a Juris Doctorate from Seton Hall School of Law. She also received an Executive Education Certificate in Corporate Social Responsibility from the Harvard Business School and a Wharton Executive Education Certificate in Social Impact Strategy. Michellene Davis began her legal career as a trial litigator. She also served as Chief Policy Counsel to a former New Jersey Governor, where she was the first African American to serve in this position. Davis was the first African American and only the second women to serve as Acting New Jersey State Treasurer. Ms. Davis was the youngest person in state history to serve as Executive Director of the New Jersey Lottery and served as a senior policy advisor in the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services. While Acting State Treasurer of New Jersey, she founded the New Jersey Department of the Treasury's Office of Supplier Diversity and Division of Minority and Women-Owned Businesses. At Rutgers Davis served on the Institute for Women's Leadership's advisory board. In this interview Ms. Davis describes her childhood growing up in Camden, New Jersey, as well as the impact her father had on her life. She speaks about her transitions between the different professions she has had, her experiences as a woman leader, and the self doubt she has faced in various professions.
• Interview: Diallo, Dazon Dixon, 2013

  Dázon Dixon Diallo is a recognized visionary and advocate in the struggle for human rights, sexual and reproductive justice, especially in the fight against HIV, gender-based violence, and womxn's economic justice. Dázon is the Founder and President of SisterLove, and she is a Co-Founder and Principal in the Public Affairs & Communications firm, 14th Strategies. She is a proud member of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda Partnership, where she advocates for sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice in public health and prevention policies and programs. She is a member of several bodies of influence including the Women-At-Risk Subcommittee and the Scientific Advisory Group of the HIV Prevention Trials Network, UNFPA Global Advisory Council, and a founding member of SisterSong Reproductive Justice Collective. Diallo serves on the IAPAC-Lancet HIV Commission on the Future of Urban HIV Response. She is the creator and convener of the Prevention Options for Womxn Advocacy & Research (POWAR) Partnership and WomxnNOW! Institute for SRHRJ for Girls & Womxn of African Descent worldwide. Dr.Diallo holds a master’s degree in public health from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (C’97) and both a bachelor’s degree and an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Spelman College (C’86, C'2012). At Rutgers University Dr. Diallo served as the Blanche, Edith, and Irving Laurie Chair in Women’s Studies at Douglass Residential College. In this interview, Dr. Diallo speaks about her childhood in Georgia including the role models that helped shape her life. She also speaks about her college and career experiences, starting her nonprofit SisterLove, and the lack of diverse narratives that need to be discussed in the conversations surrounding HIV/AIDS.
• Interview: Pinn, Vivan, 2018

  Vivian Pinn, MD, was the first full-time Director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) from 1991-2011 at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NIH Associate Director for Research on Women’s Health. In 1967, Dr. Pinn graduated from the University of Virginia School of Medicine as the only African American woman in her class. Dr. Pinn was a Professor and Chair of the Department of Pathology at Howard University College of Medicine, Associate Professor of Pathology and Assistant Dean of Student Affairs at Tufts University School of Medicine, and Teaching Fellow at Harvard Medical School. In this interview Dr. Pinn discusses impressions of the women in her life and how this influenced the woman she was to become. She then speaks about the moments in her life that impacted her career path in medicine that coincided with the struggles of being black woman in medicine. She closes this interview with advice to women graduating from college and entering the workforce.
• Interview: Ringgold, Faith, 2008

  Faith Ringgold began her artistic career more than fifty years ago as a painter. Today, she is best known for her painted story quilts – art that combines painting, quilted fabric and storytelling. She has exhibited in major museums in the USA, Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. She is in the permanent collection of many museums including the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Museum of Modern Art. Her first book, Tar Beach was a Caldecott Honor Book and winner of the Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration, among numerous other honors. She has written and illustrated eleven children’s books. She has received more than seventy-five awards, fellowships, citations and honors, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Fellowship for painting, two National Endowment for the Arts Awards and seventeen honorary doctorates, one of which is from her alma mater The City College of New York. In this interview Ringgold begins with her childhood in Harlem, New York City, during the 1930s and the influences that impacted her life. She then addresses her experience during the Harlem Renaissance and struggles as a Black female artist, then moves on to her social activism within her art and the development of her mature style.
• Interview: Stringer, C. Vivian, 2009

  C. Vivian Stringer is the former head coach of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team from 1995 to 2022. Stringer holds the distinction of being the first coach, men’s or women’s, in NCAA history to lead three different women’s programs to the NCAA Final Four. She is the fifth all-time winningest coach in women’s basketball. She was formerly the head coach of the University of Iowa women’s basketball team and the Cheyney State women’s basketball team. Stringer was the 2001 inductee into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. She is the three-time national coach of the year and was the assistant coach for the gold medal-winning 2004 U.S. Olympic team. In 2009 In 2018, she won her 1,000th game as a head coach, which made her the first African-American college basketball coach to win 1,000 games. She was honored with the degree of Honorary Doctor of Humanities from Howard University on May 10, 2008, the university's 140th commencement address. She was also inducted as an honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority on July 15, 2008 during the sorority's Centennial Ball in Washington, DC. Stringer is also the author of the autobiographical book “Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph”. C. Vivian Stringer discusses the leadership style she has developed over her years as a coach and the particular responsibility she feels as a black woman in a leadership position. She also talks about the way she helps transforms the lives of young women and ends with advice she gives to the interviewer as a young woman with hopes of leadership in her future.
• Interview: White, Deborah Gray, 2016

  Deborah Gray White is the Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History and Professor of History at Rutgers University. During her forty years at Rutgers, she has not only been a professor but also the co-director of "The Black Atlantic: Race, Nation and Gender" project at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis (1997-99), a research professor at the Rutgers Institute for Research on Women (1999-2000), and chair of the history department (2000-03). As an Americanist who specializes in African American and American Women’s history, Professor White is especially interested in issues of identity and the intersection of race, class, gender, and sexuality. In this interview, Dr. White begins by talking about the influential women in her childhood. Then the interview transitions to her work as a historian and what her title at Rutgers means. She also discusses her work directing a major institutional research project that uncovered the history of enslaved and disenfranchised populations in Rutgers history. The project resulted in the publication of the book Scarlet and Black: Slavery and Dispossession in Rutgers History. The interview ends with her advice for young Black women on how to obtain the type of success Dr. White has achieved.