Cal Alumni Association
By Clothilde Hewlett
June 5, 2020
Dear Cal alumni, students, and friends:
“Oh Freedom!”—the song you just heard—was what my mother sang with the Freedom Riders.
She trained in Philadelphia and traveled to the South to engage in nonviolent resistance alongside Martin Luther King Jr. As an eight-year-old girl, I marched in the March on Washington. So, I speak to you today not only as Cal Alumni Association’s executive director, but also as a wife, mother, sister, aunt, and grandmother who comes from a family involved in the fight for civil rights in the United States of America.
In our UC Berkeley community, we grieve and express our deepest sympathy to the family of George Floyd in Minneapolis. His brutal death, and the ensuing insensitive remarks regarding this senseless killing, are indicative our country is at a critical inflection point in our history.
We are at a significant juncture, just as we were on August 28, 1963 during the March on Washington. We appreciate the diversity of voices who have joined the peaceful demonstrations in cities across this world to acknowledge the sanctity of human life. Peaceful demonstrations that acknowledge the suffering, indifference, and dehumanization that systemic racism has inflicted upon a people just because of the color of their skin.
Yes, our country is at a critical inflection point in our twenty-first century history.
We must ask ourselves: What do we stand for? What are we willing to do to support our principles of peace, human rights, and the value of human life?
You may be asking yourself: “What can I do?”
We, as the Cal Alumni Association community, can support each other. Listen to our sisters and brothers. Respect the life of everyone we encounter, although they may come from cultural backgrounds different than our own.