About Judy Juanita

Born in Berkeley and raised in Oakland, Judy Juanita (Judy Hart) joined the nation’s first Black Student Union at San Francisco State and subsequently the Black Panther Party (BPP).

She edited the BPP newspaper and worked in the Breakfast for Children program while finishing her BA at SF State. Five days after graduating, she became the youngest professor of the nation’s first black studies program.

Decades later, she would appreciate that she had participated in four key social movements:

• Black Arts Movement (BAM) where she performed her poetry with LeRoi Jones (who became Amiri Baraka) in the Black Arts and Culture Troupe

• The BPP where she edited its weekly newspaper and worked in the groundbreaking Free Breakfast for Children program

•  The Black Student movement and historic 4 ½ month SFSU strike where she edited Black Fire, the strike journal, and established 

• The nation’s first Black Studies Department where she taught Black Psychology and Black Journalism.

An award-winning author, poet, public speaker and podcaster, Juanita’s themes explore the peculiar paths trodden by black people in California.

Her work is archived at Duke University's John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African-American Literature.

Her poetry and fiction have been published widely. A former Poet-in-the-Schools in New Jersey, Judy Juanita currently teaches at Laney College in Oakland.