Three decades ago, Dawn Riley Duval flew over hurdles for Coach Gary Winckler’s Fighting Illini women’s track and field squad. Today, Reverend Doctor Duval sprints for social justice as an advocate for Black women’s healing and health.
Though the seven-time Big Ten champion and eight-time All-American sometimes performed in the shadows of celebrated teammates Celena Mondie Milner, Tonja Buford Bailey, and Tonya Williams, together they dominated the 1990s. The Illini captured the indoor conference title in 1993, both the indoor and outdoor championships in 1995, and an additional indoor crown in ’95. Amazingly, Illinois was the runner-up in each of the championship meets they didn’t win during Duval’s four seasons in Champaign-Urbana.
Winckler discovered Duval in her hometown of Denver, Colorado, where she starred as a sprinter-hurdler for the Colorado Flyers.
“I started running when I was eight years old,” she said. “At eight, I was just gangly and raggedy and had no coordination, but my family was at every meet, just cheering me on and giving me all kind of love. The coaches took me under their wing and helped me to figure out these things called 100-meter hurdles.”
Duval says she “was blessed to be on a track squad with Black women who were track deities”.
“Compared to them, I was mediocre,” she said. “I wasn’t an Olympian and I didn’t win any NCAA titles, but I was eventually able to run the 100 meter hurdles professionally and travel the world, mastering the mind-body-sole synchronicity that is required to sprint over 10 hurdles with precise attention to technique and details. I developed the courage and creativity to fly and sprint, requiring me to take risks. I loved how my body felt … every muscle strong and healthy … so damn powerful. I was impressive. I impressed myself and I liked that. I was joyful and playful and fearless and confident about who I was … Black, fearless and free. This foundation that loved ones at the University of Illinois athletics helped me to cultivate has served me well in life.”
In her remarks at UI’s 2022 Athletics Hall of Fame ceremony, Duval said that arriving on the University of Illinois campus from Denver, a city where the Black population comprises only 10 percent of its 750,000 citizenry, was exhilarating.
“It felt like I landed in Africa,” she said. “Between the courses that I took, the amazing athletes, and the wonderful parties at the Union that were hosted by Black fraternities and sororities, I came to love that I was unapologetically Black. The University helped me to have the courage and creativity to be an entrepreneur.”
Academically, Duval said the U of I whetted her appetite for learning. After earning a bachelor’s degree in English Rhetoric (1996), she attended the University of Colorado where she achieved a Master of Art’s in Print Journalism (2001). Four years later, she received a Master of Divinity from Vanderbilt University (2005), then a Doctorate from the Chicago Theological Seminary (2017).
Duval told the Hall of Fame audience that “Today’s induction has allowed me to reflect and express my deep gratitude for the gifts I gained as a scholar-athlete.”
It was as a reporter for Denver’s Rocky Mountain News that Duval realized that her greater calling was to be a social justice worker.
“As a news reporter, I loved learning about all the happenings in the Denver Metro area, but it was frustrating to not be able to directly help people,” she said. “I really wanted to focus on social justice work as a faithful person. While I was at Vanderbilt, I learned about racial justice work, womanist theology and liberation theology. I came to realize that Black people need to heal from the vestiges of slavery, and white folks do as well.”
Duval recently was interviewed for a story by reparations4slavery.com, revealing how in 2014 she and her friend Reverend Tawana Davis were radicalized by the killing of Michael Brown, Jr. and energized to found Soul2SoulSisters.org, an organization that identifies all Black women as being “precious creations.”
“Watching Michael lie in the streets for over four hours, seeing the community wailing and in shock, watching law enforcement’s heatless and militaristic anti-Black response, it radicalized us,” she said. “That’s when we decided to launch Soul 2 Soul Sisters, to do healing work with Black women and anti-white supremacy work with white people through our Facing Racism program.”
Duval has also co-founded an LLC called Justice Unleashed. She offers services for guest preaching, keynote speaking and event emceeing.
Now the parent of an 18-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter, Duval says that she’ll turn 50 in 2003 and that she’s never felt better about herself.
Closing her Hall of Fame induction remarks, Duval told the U of I audience, “I share this love letter with you all just to let you know that my time here in the ’90s was some of the best years of my life. They have totally impacted my life. It is clear that I am feeling the best I have felt since I was stomping on the campus here at the University of Illinois.”
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