Sherrill D. Luke '50

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Sherrill D. Luke ’50 UCLA’s first - and America’s second - black student body president, a tireless foe of discrimination from his student days who went on to become a lawyer and judge, passed away in early March. He was 97.

Born Sept. 19, 1928, Luke was a child actor, with appearances in four films from 1937 through 1944. He attended Los Angeles High School and earned a scholarship to UCLA provided by Black fraternity Kappa Alpha Psi, Upsilon Chapter, whose president at the time was former Bruin – and future Los Angeles mayor – Tom Bradley.

At UCLA, Luke was head yell leader and member of KELPS, an organization known for irreverent humor and pranks – as well as for their inclusivity and staunch support of civil rights.  Members of KELPS from the ZBT fraternity encouraged Luke’s successful run for student body president in 1949; grateful for their support, he moved in at ZBT during an era when interracial co-habitation of any kind was rare.

Luke’s story encouraged athlete, actor and public servant Rafer Johnson ’59 to choose UCLA, saying, “It’s not just because of UCLA’s long history with athletes of color, like Jackie Robinson and Woody Strode. While I was touring campus, I saw pictures of the former class presidents, and one of them was a Black student. I didn’t see anything like that at any other school.”

As president, Luke worked against discrimination on campus and led the student government to reject the UC Regent’s “loyalty oath,” requiring employees to declare non-allegiance to communism or risk losing their jobs.

This stance, according to fellow KELP alum William McNally, brought Luke into conflict with the dean of the Law School and may have prevented him from realizing his dream of attending UCLA Law. Instead, Luke went to graduate school at UC Berkeley, where he earned an M.A. in municipal administration, and then served as assistant city manager in the Bay Area community of North Richmond.

After serving in the U.S. Air Force from 1954 to 1956, Luke returned to his local government position while attending law school in the evenings, earning his J.D. from Golden Gate University in 1960. He was a key aide and advisor to Pat Brown, governor of California from 1959 to 1967, particularly in areas tied to urban affairs, housing and social policy. 

Luke was with the Washington, D.C., mayor's office from 1967 to 1969; he was program development director for the mayor when he left to join Aetna Life and Casualty of Hartford, Connecticut, becoming the head of a new department tasked with developing company-wide programs to help solve urban problems. As urban affairs director for the insurer, Luke acted as liaison with government and other groups involved with problems of the cities.

Returning to Southern California, he was a member of the City of Los Angeles Planning Commission from 1973 to 1975. In 1981, Luke was appointed a municipal court judge by Pat Brown’s son, California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. He was elected to the California Superior Court, Los Angeles County, serving from 1989 to 2000, after which he joined the American Arbitration Association.

Luke stayed involved with UCLA as a member of the Foundation Board of Directors, as president of the Alumni Association from 1988 to 1990, and as a UC Regent, advocating for UCLA to take an active role in creating a more tolerant society. He was awarded the 1994 University Service Award and, in 2003, the UCLA Black Alumni Association’s Jackie Robinson Trailblazer Award.

In April 2024, McNally organized a video shoot for an interview of Luke, which took place at the James West Alumni Center. Spry and still extremely sharp at age 95, he reminisced about his life, his time at UCLA, his appreciation for the KELPS and many other topics, posing for photos in his KELPS cap, his judge’s robe and his yell sweater.