Elroy showing the new poster by social justice artist Tyhib Rawls for UCSB's Black Student Union.
Elroy Anthony Pinks, Jr
August 12, 1971 – July 9, 2024
UC Santa Barbara will always appreciate and remember Elroy’s dedicated leadership and extraordinary service to our Office of Black Student Development, as well as his earlier work in Undergraduate Admissions. He returned to our campus in 2021 at a critical time for change, and worked tirelessly to cultivate partnerships and provide support to our students, faculty, staff, and alumni. It was truly an honor to have him as our colleague and distinguished UC Santa Barbara alumnus.
—Henry Yang, Chancellor, UC Santa Barbara
G. Reginald Daniel
April 3, 1949 – November 29, 2022
Pioneer in the field of Critical Mixed Race Studies, his work influenced generations of scholars and activists. A friend, colleague, mentor, educator, and inspiration to so many people who have been part of the Sociology Department and the UCSB campus over the decades.
He had a profound impact on generations of students as well as scholars and activists within and beyond the university.
Reg was co-founding editor and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies (JCMRS). He authored and co-edited several books, including More Than Black? (2002), Race and Multiraciality in Brazil and the United States (2006), Machado de Assis (2012), and Race and the Obama Phenomenon (2014). Reg also served on the advisory boards for the Association of MultiEthnic Americans, the Mixed Heritage Center of MAVIN Foundation, and Project RACE (Reclassify All Children Equally). In recognition of his longstanding service to multiracial advocacy, he was awarded the Loving Prize at the 5th Annual Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival in 2012 in Los Angeles.
Shirley Graves Kennedy
– January 20, 2003
Shirley Graves Kennedy arrived in Santa Barbara in 1970 where she found a small, marginalized African American community and other people of color who faced job and housing discrimination, were excluded from the arts, and were often treated unfairly in the school system. She became involved in all these issues, as an organizer and spokeswoman and activist. After the age of 40, she completed her degree at UCSB and went on to earn a Ph.D. in Political Science in Government from Claremont University. She then became a faculty member in the UCSB Department of Black Studies and served for over ten years as the Center for Black Studies Community Affairs coordinator. During all those years, she endeavored to connect the university with the community and build bridges between town and gown, as she called it. She always understood that scholarship and research must ultimate lead to societal transformation and worked relentlessly to transform the Santa Barbara community with her commitment to social justice, activism, and democracy. In 2000 the Santa Barbara community honored Dr. Kennedy as one of the most important city residents of the past century.
After her death in 2003, the Center for Black Studies Research established an annual lecture in her name. The Shirley Kennedy Memorial Lecture celebrates the progressive work that she did in Santa Barbara for over forty years and aims at maintaining the ideals and principles that she stood for in the continued efforts of the community to effect social change.
The Kennedy family, working with CBSR, has donated the Shirley Kennedy Papers to the university. They will be housed at the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives (CEMA) at the UCSB Library and be made available to those who want a glimpse of the inner workings of the progressive, multifaceted woman.
Sojourner Kincaid Role
August 26, 1943 – November 13, 2023
Joy “Sojourner” Kincaid was born on August 26, 1943, in Marion, North Carolina. From age 5, she lived with her grandmother, an active leader in the community and church—a person Sojourner credited with being a huge influence in her own work. At a young age, Sojourner was introduced to poetry.
In her early years, Sojourner also spent time with her mother in New York City and with her father abroad in Germany.
In the 1960s, Sojourner moved to Washington, D.C., then she moved back to North Carolina when her father retired from the military and eventually attended the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she became involved in the Children’s Rights Movement on campus and majored in criminal justice, emphasizing juvenile delinquency. Around the age of 30, she added “Sojourner” to her name after the suffragist and abolitionist Sojourner Truth.
Sojourner attended the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. In that time, she became an activist, serving in the Graduate Assembly and the Coalition for a Diversified Faculty.
At Berkeley Law, Sojourner was advised that “you have to decide whether you’re going to be a lawyer or a crusader.” In her next chapter, she chose the latter to join her good friend from North Carolina, Rod Rolle, who was attending Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara. In this place, she began to build deep, nurturing roots. In the 1980s, Sojourner and Rod married and had a beautiful ceremony in Santa Barbara.
In her life in Santa Barbara, Sojourner has been known as a playwright, producer, poet, author, advocate, historian, and teacher, among several other distinguished titles.
In Memoriam by Jeff Killebrew, The Santa Barbara Independent
Otis Madison
February 23, 1943 – December 29, 2015
Otis was a cornerstone of our Department of Black Studies for nearly three decades, serving as a dedicated and influential Lecturer. He was a powerful intellectual and phenomenal teacher whose career had a profound impact on countless students and colleagues. In recognition of his outstanding teaching, he was named Professor of the Year in 1992 by UC Santa Barbara’s Mortar Board.
Otis first came to our campus in 1975 when he was accepted into the doctoral program, his research and courses reflected his interests in U.S. legal history, U.S. race relations, race relations and the law, Black American political history, and political violence. He also taught courses on Black Marxism and the Obama presidency.
One of his many strengths was his ability to challenge his students to think critically and to defend their positions factually and intellectually. He also enjoyed engaging in after-class discussions with his students, cultivating the open exchange of ideas and opinions.
Cedric Robinson
November 5, 1940 – June 5, 2016
Cedric became a political activist during his student days, when he protested against the university administration and American foreign and domestic policies along with other Black radical students.
In 1978, he joined the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and became director of the Center for Black Studies Research. He also headed the Department of Black Studies and the Department of Political Science.
In 1980, Robinson and UCSB student Corey Dubin started Third World News Review (TWNR) on the campus and community radio station, KCSB. Five years later the program became available on public access television. Since 1980, UCSB students from the Third World and other UCSB faculty members have contributed to the program, produced it, or both.
Cassandra Jaelie Stewart
June 23, 2003 - September 16, 2023
Funny and multi-talented, Cassandra Jaelie Stewart was magical.
Born in Fairfax, Virginia, to Jeffrey and Anissa Stewart, she moved to Santa Barbara in 2008.
In 2012, she transferred to Washington Elementary School, where she excelled and developed an unwavering conviction to become a doctor.
Over the years she spent hundreds of hours volunteering at Cottage Hospital, at AHA!, and as a student athletic trainer for the football team at Santa Barbara High School. There she excelled academically but also experienced some of the challenges of being a young Black girl at the school.
After graduating with a scholarship from Santa Barbara High in 2021, Cassandra enrolled in UCSB as a pre-med student, but her struggles with mental health led her to take a leave of absence.
Having moved to Des Moines, Iowa, Cassandra was working in Optimae Life Services, a behavioral mental health facility, tending to the needs of others when she slipped away from this life. Cassandra was the wounded healer, ministering to the needs of others, even as she struggled to heal herself.
Clyde Woods
January 17, 1957 - July 6, 2011
Associate professor at UC Santa Barbara and distinguished scholar whose research examined social and public policy issues by studying the cultural practices of those oppressed by them. He was also acting director of the Center for Black Studies Research.
His work demonstrated his overarching belief that the purpose of public social science is to explore and strengthen the links between knowledge embedded in communities of color and the knowledge disseminated by universities.