Shirley Weber

About Shirley Weber

Dr. Weber was born on a farm in rural Hope, Arkansas, where her father, David, was a sharecropper. Her California story began at three years old, when she and her family fled the farm and moved west after her father refused to back down in a dispute with a white farmer, and a lynch mob then threatened her father’s life. The family relocated to the Pueblo Del Rio housing projects in South Los Angeles, where Dr. Weber grew up.

Dr. Weber is a living testament to the power of public education: she is a proud product of California public schools – district schools in Los Angeles, through high school, and later at UCLA, where she earned three degrees, including her Ph.D., at the age of 26. As one of the few Black women in southern California navigating academia in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dr. Weber became one of the youngest-ever professors at San Diego State University, where she helped found the Africana Studies Department.

From drshirleyweber.com