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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: Clarke, Cheryl, 2018 Cheryl Clarke was born on May 16, 1947 in Washington, D.C. Her father served in the U.S. Army in the Red Ball Express in France after the Allied invasion in June 1944. Growing up in Northwest Washington, D.C., Cheryl attended parochial schools, including Immaculate Conception Academy for high school. From 1965 to 1969, Cheryl attended Howard University and majored in English. During college, she worked part time at the Washington Post and at a Peace Corps office. In 1969, Cheryl came to Rutgers-New Brunswick as a graduate student in English. She earned her M.A. in English in 1974. Cheryl taught courses in the Urban University Program and discusses educational opportunity programs in the interview. From 1972 to 1974, she taught courses in the English Department at Rutgers. A life-long activist, Cheryl discusses her many experiences participating in social movements, including the anti-war and Black Power movements at Howard University, anti-apartheid activism at Rutgers, LGBT activism, feminism and lesbian-feminism, and activism surrounding the defense of Assata Shakur. From 1974 to 1978, Cheryl worked in Middlesex County in the Comprehensive Employment and Training Program. In 1978, she returned to Rutgers to study social work, obtaining her M.S.W. in 1980. In 1980, Cheryl began working in Student Affairs at Rutgers. In 1992, she served as the founding director of the Office of Diverse Community Affairs and Lesbian/Gay Concerns (now called the Center for Social Justice Education and LGBT Communities). From 2009 to 2013, Cheryl served as the Dean of Students for Livingston Campus. In 2000, she earned her Ph.D. in English. At Rutgers, Cheryl coordinated the university-wide Committee to Advance Our Common Purposes and the New Brunswick-wide Bias Prevention Education Committee, in addition to establishing the university-wide network of "Liaisons" and teaching numerous courses. Cheryl is the author of Narratives: Poems in the Tradition of Black Women (1982); Living as a Lesbian (1986); Humid Pitch (1989); Experimental Love (1993); After Mecca: Women Poets and the Black Arts Movement (2005); and The Days of Good Looks: Prose and Poetry, 1980-2005 (2006). From 1981 to 1990, she served as a member of the editorial collective of the feminist literary journal Conditions. In 2013, Cheryl retired after forty-one years at Rutgers. Cheryl and her partner Barbara Balliet co-own Blenheim Hill Books in Hobart, New York and organize the annual Hobart Festival of Women Writers. -
Interview: Martin, Joshua W. III, 2022 This interview was recorded as part of the Black Camden Oral History Project. Joshua W. Martin III was born to Bernice B. and Joshua W. Martin in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1944. In this interview, Martin describes his childhood in Columbia, his formative experience working at his father’s barbershop, and his fascination with science. He discusses his decision to go to Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, Ohio, and his experiences there from 1962 to 1966. Following his graduation, he began working for DuPont Company working in science and technology. He discusses his experiences as the first Black employee at the professional level at his facility and his projects there, including developing a patent for DuPont. During this period, he took graduate courses in Materials Engineering at Drexel University between 1968 and 1971. He left DuPont and Drexel and began attending Rutgers Law School in Camden in 1971. He discusses his time at the law school, particularly his work with the local organization Black People’s Unity Movement (BPUM) and his participation in their economic development work, including helping to start a Burger King near the Rutgers campus in Camden. He also talks about his relationship with the community leaders in the BPUM. After his graduation in 1974, Martin went to work for Hercules Incorporated as a patent attorney. He also served on the Board of the Better Business Bureau and the Delaware Public Service Commission. In 1982, Martin became a Superior Court judge for the State of Delaware, and he shares some of his experiences and perspectives on the justice system in the interview. Following seven years of service as a judge, Martin became General Counsel for Bell Atlantic Delaware (later Verizon Delaware) in 1990 and was made President and CEO in 1996. He ended his time with Verizon in 2005, after which he joined the law firm Potter Anderson & Corroon. Additionally, he discusses his work overseeing the delivery of health care and mental health services in several Delaware Department of Correction facilities between 2006 and 2010.
