Everything's Inherited

By Ashleigh Fryer

On a recent day in her eighth-grade U.S. history classroom in San Jose, Kacie Cosgrove (B.A. History, French ‘24; M.A. Education ‘25) watched her students wrestle with a familiar question: Who gets to tell the story?

Her students were studying the Mexican-American War when one raised a hand.
“The textbook is biased,” the student said.

Instead of moving on, Cosgrove invited the class to dig deeper.

“Yes,” she recalled thinking. “Say more about that.”

The moment captured the kind of classroom she strives to create—one where students question assumptions, examine power, and think critically about the stories they're told.

“The opposite of democracy is fascism,” Cosgrove said. “Under fascism, people avoid critical thinking. They don't ask questions. They don’t engage. So I want the exact opposite in my class.”

Nearly half a century earlier, another educator was pursuing many of those same goals.

Dr. Benjamin James Yerger (Ph.D. Education ‘75) never met Cosgrove, yet his influence reaches her classroom every day.

Through the Ben Yerger Fellowship at the UC Berkeley School of Education (BSE), his commitment to educational opportunity continues to support new generations of teachers who are preparing students not only for careers and college, but for participation in a democratic society.

In many ways, that mission reflects the life Yerger devoted himself to building.

A Legacy Rooted in Education

Born in Hope, Arkansas, in 1930, Yerger came from generations of educators. His grandfather, Henry Clay Yerger, was a principal at a high school for Black students, which was later named after him. Yerger’s grandmother, Ella, left a Choctaw reservation to teach at the Yerger High School, where she met and then married Henry Clay. Yerger’s mother taught music, which helped shape the cultural life of her community.

Education wasn't simply a profession in the Yerger family, it was a calling.

“His main thing was trying to raise students up,” said his widow, Dr. Charlene Harrington (Ph.D. Education; Sociology ‘75). “He felt that was the way to make their lives better and their family's lives better, but also to improve society.”

But Yerger did not begin his career in education. After earning a degree in chemistry, he became the first African American employed at Chevron Research Laboratory. At a time when Black scientists were largely excluded from professional opportunities, it was a remarkable achievement.

Then Yerger met Malcolm X.

After attending one of Malcolm X's speeches in the Bay Area, Yerger had the opportunity to speak with him directly. During their conversation, Malcolm X encouraged him to consider education as a way to serve his community and create opportunities for future generations.

The exchange changed the course of his life.

Yerger left industry and dedicated himself to education, eventually helping develop the nation's first Black Studies program at Merritt College in Oakland, expanding educational opportunities for underserved students, and becoming a respected leader in California's community college system.

For Yerger, education and democracy were inseparable because both depended on community. His daughter, Dr. Valerie Yerger (B.S. Conservation of Natural Resources ‘81), remembers accompanying him to community meetings, demonstrations, educational gatherings, and neighborhood events throughout her childhood.

“I always had my father’s permission to share the space that he was in,” she said. “If I had something to say in response to what I heard, there was an opportunity for me to respond. I never felt that I couldn't express myself.”

Long before she understood concepts like democracy or civic participation, her father was teaching her through example.

“There was something about not having to be different to be with others,” she said. “You can be who you are with others, while accepting them for who they are.”

She remembers him bringing her to Black Panther events, introducing her to people from different backgrounds, and helping her understand both her own identity and the value of collective action.

“In order to have a community, there needed to be a recognition that there were differences and diversity and everybody had a role,” she said. “No role was bigger than somebody else's role.”

Those beliefs guided Yerger during one of the most transformative periods in American higher education.

As student activism surged in the 1960s and 1970s, he worked closely with students advocating for change and helped institutions respond to demands for greater equity and representation. Reflecting on that period years later, he described it as “a time when students were directly involved in campus decision-making.”

“It was a very exciting time,” Harrington recalled. “They were trying to understand what students wanted and what were the issues that needed to be addressed by the college.”

Finding a Home at Berkeley

In 1970, Yerger arrived at UC Berkeley to pursue a doctorate in higher education. There he met Harrington, a fellow doctoral student who shared his commitment to educational opportunity and community engagement.

“He loved Berkeley,” she said. “He just thought it was the best thing that ever happened to him, going back to school and getting his doctorate.”

The two would spend nearly four decades together, united by a belief that education could change lives and strengthen communities.

After Yerger's passing in 2014, Harrington established the Ben Yerger Fellowship to ensure that his commitment to students would continue.

Today, the fellowship helps aspiring educators enter a profession that Yerger believed is fundamental to a healthy democracy.

Teaching Students They Belong

For Yerger Fellowship recipient Riechal Zonelysse Paras Martinez (M.A. Education ‘26) currently enrolled in the Berkeley Teacher Education Program (BTEP), educating like democracy depends on it begins with understanding whose stories made your own possible.

A Filipina American educator whose parents immigrated from the Philippines, Martinez said learning about Yerger’s legacy inspired her to think differently about history, community, and the people she considers her ancestors.

“It was so cool to be accepted in BTEP and then in the fellowship,” she said, “because he was the first person to create a Black Studies course in the U.S. outside of historically Black colleges.”

That history resonated deeply. As she has developed her understanding of ethnic studies and social justice, Martinez said she has begun redefining what ancestry means.

“My ancestors are people that have allowed me to be successful in America,” she said. “And I think that includes a lot of Black activists. That includes so many people that have fought for educational rights and just human rights in general.”

The idea mirrors a lesson at the heart of Yerger's own career: democracy depends on people understanding not only themselves, but their connections to one another.

Originally, Martinez planned to become a medical doctor. But after taking courses in ethnic studies as an undergraduate, she found herself transformed by what she was learning about race, power, and history.

“I wanted to dedicate my life not to an individualistic pathway,” she said. “The community is literally what brings me life and it's what brings me joy.”

That path eventually led her to BTEP, where she found herself learning from Black faculty and engaging deeply with Black educational traditions. Today, as she prepares to begin her teaching career, Martinez thinks often about the students whose histories remain absent from many classrooms.

“I'm reminded every day that students don't even know their history,” she said. “There are so many systems and barriers in place where they are not allowed to learn it.”

Martinez’s journey reflects the very legacy Yerger spent his life building: educational spaces where students can see themselves, understand others, and recognize their place in the broader community.

“The fact of democracy is to remind us that we're not alone,” she said.

Passing it On

More than a decade after his death, Ben Yerger's influence continues through the fellowship that bears his name and through educators like Cosgrove and Paras, who are preparing the next generation of students to participate in civic life.

The connection between them reflects something Yerger understood well: education is never confined to a single classroom or generation.

“There’s this guy, and I’ve never met him, but he deeply impacted my ability to become a teacher,” Cosgrove reflected on the fellowship. “In education, everything's inherited.”

The phrase could just as easily describe Yerger's own life.

He inherited a tradition of educational leadership from the generations who came before him. He passed those values on to his family, his students, and the institutions he helped shape. Today, they live on in classrooms he never saw and in students he never met.

His daughter still encounters people eager to tell her stories about her father's impact.

“The pride that I have for my dad,” she said, “along with the responses that I’d get, have been unmatched by anything else in this world.”

When asked what she remembers most about him, however, she doesn't mention his degrees, his leadership positions, or the programs he helped build. Instead, her answer is simple.

“I felt safe with my dad.”

More than a decade after his passing, Ben Yerger's legacy lives on in classrooms where students are encouraged to question, participate, and see themselves as part of a larger community.

In other words, classrooms that educate like democracy depends on it.