All News

Although social media activism campaigns are started almost daily, seldom do they accomplish their goal of creating and sustaining national interest that lasts for years. Nevertheless, occasionally these movements successfully promote awareness, draw together communities and create lasting conversations that can affect lives across the country, and even the globe. One such campaign is the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, co-founded by Alicia Garza.

The Hamilton College Voices of Color Lecture Series welcomed renowned dance icon Judith Jamison for an intimate talk in the Chapel on April 18. The Series honors C. Christine Johnson, former director of the Hamilton College Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP. In the context of being an empowered role model, eager to give back, Jamison reflected on her career in the performing arts, most significantly her involvement in classical ballet.

Laverne Cox of Netflix’s Orange is the New Black reminded a Wellin Hall audience of the importance in claiming the intersecting components of one’s multiple identities with pride and creating spaces of independent gender expression in a lecture on Feb. 22. Her talk, the keynote address in the NY6 Spectrum Conference, was titled “Ain’t I a Woman: My Journey to Womanhood.”

Distinguished author Harriet A. Washington delivered a lecture titled “Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to Present” at Hamilton on Feb. 19. Her book by the same name won the prestigious 2007 National Book Critics’ Circle Award and was named one of the year’s Best Books by Publishers’ Weekly.

Hamilton College will host the first New York Six Liberal Arts Consortium (NY6) Spectrum Conference for LGBTQA students, faculty and staff on Feb. 22-23 on campus. 

“When I talk about race, I like to start with shock.”  That is precisely what Allison Williams did on Sept. 23 in KJ’s Red Pit. In front of Hamilton community members, Williams dove head-first into her pursuit of racially charged comedy as she opened her lecture with a tale of different racial preferences in inappropriate Craigslist ads.

“Dr. King would be talking about the need for quality education for all the nation's youth,” Bob Moses ’56 told Parade Magazine in its Aug. 21, issue.

Hamilton will host “Faculty of Color in the Liberal Arts College,” a two-day conference  sponsored by the New York Six Liberal Arts Consortium, on Thursday and Friday, April 11-12.

The Days-Massolo Center at Hamilton College has announced speakers for the fall semester.  The Center, which opened in 2011, aims to promote diversity awareness and foster dialogue among the many diverse groups on campus. All events are free and open to the public.

In an effort to raise awareness of racial profiling and bring attention to the Trayvon Martin case, the Black Latino Student Union (BLSU) sponsored an “I am Not Suspicious” walk across campus on March 30. Martin was the Florida teen who was shot and killed on Feb. 26 by George Zimmerman, a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain, who perceived Martin as a threat.  Members of the Hamilton community were urged to wear hoodies and join in the march from the Taylor Science Center to the Kirner-Johnson Building.