“Carl Dix and Cornel West tonight… Even from the 99th overflow room, this is so incredibly powerful.” —Tweet

“Fantastic, the best event ever at UCB. It was well-timed with what’s happened, it was intellectually challenging, emotionally touched people and relevant.” —UC Administrator

“Students emailed their lives will never be the same.” —UC Professor

Word had spread throughout the University of California, Berkeley campus and among many in the Bay Area—via leaflets at Occupy rallies, emails on department and student organization list serves, class announcements, and word of mouth—in the weeks leading up to the December 2 dialogue between Carl Dix and Cornel West—In the Age of Obama… Police Terror, Incarceration, No Jobs, Mis-Education: What Future for Our Youth? So the students, faculty, Revolution Books supporters and others organizing the event expected a full house of 1,000 in Pauley Ballroom, and had reserved two overflow rooms seating another 800. But in the hours leading up to the event it became clear something else—new and extraordinary—was happening.

In October and November, UC had been the scene of an awakening and uprising unlike anything the campus had seen since the 1960s—a national focal point of student struggle against budget cuts, the Occupy movement, outrage over police abuse, and racism on campus—with students, faculty, and people from the community gathering in the thousands and waging sharp, uncompromising struggle against the administration and police—and weeks earlier against a racist campus Republican “bake sale” against affirmative action. So a lot of different kinds of people—from the Occupy movement, African-American student groups, students studying mass incarceration and police violence, and others had been working in various ways to bring the dialogue to UC. Twenty UC Berkeley academic departments, centers, and student and student government organizations, as well as several community groups, were sponsoring the dialogue.

One administrator emailed that the dialogue would bring unique voices to campus and enrich the discussion about “the criminal justice system, structural racism, economic justice.” A Black student told Revolution, “There’s been no other event at UCB that even came close to this one: an important whole evening with two Black intellectuals speaking to a very large crowd, let alone speaking about things like revolution.”

On December 2, people were lining up hours before the event to get in, with the line stretching as far as the eye could see. Some said it went from Pauley halfway across campus past the library, others that it went all the way across to Hearst—probably a half mile. People had come from campus and around the Bay Area. Some came in organized groups—like 30 high school students and teachers from San Francisco. There were students from Mills, Laney, SF State, Cal. State East Bay, and San Jose State. There were activists and prominent figures from the community, and many who’d been active in the Occupy movement. Folks came from LA and even Las Vegas.

“Holy cow! A HUGE line of people for CARL DIX, CORNEL WEST—WHAT FUTURE FOR OUR YOUTH, mind blowing,” one person tweeted. Hundreds and hundreds were still lined up after more than 1,800 people packed into Pauley and two overflow rooms.

Pauley Ballroom was charged. After a welcome by an Associated Students UC Senator, two spoken-word performances by UC students, and introductions by the two moderators—one a UC faculty member, the other a UC graduate student—Carl Dix took the stage.

Read more about The Cornel West-Carl Dix Dialogue at UC Berkeley: http://revcom.us/a/253/west-dix_at_berkeley-en.html