Civil rights

Dickinson hosted a week of events surrounding National Coming Out Day in
1996 entitled "Self, Family, World: Continuing the Struggle for
Acceptance."  The events included a debate over gay marriage, a showing
of the movie Go Fish, a discussion led by the Mechancisburg
Chapter of P-FLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), a lecture

This Dickinsonian article covers an abortion rights protest in Washington D.C. that over 100 Dickinson College students attended and participated in.

In her 1984 research paper "The Presence of the Black American at Dickinson College from 1773 to the Present," Elaine Vivian Watson researched the influence of "Black America" upon Dickinson College. Her paper includes information on "unfamous firsts" at Dickinson as well as information on the Black Alumni Questionaire.

 

Some "Unfamous Firsts" Include:

 

1901: John Robert Paul Brock is the first black male student to graduate from Dickinson College.

 

In her 1911 essay "Female Suffrage," Mary Eleta Witmer analyzes the history and condition of the Suffrage movement. She argues that the American Suffrage movement has fallen short due to its association with such groups as socialists, abolitionists, and orthodox theology. Witmer closes her essay by comparing the strengths and weaknesses of the American and English Suffrage movements.

In her essay titled "The Influence of Uncle Tom's Cabin," Lida Mildred Ebbert explored the great importance of the novel upon nineteenth- and twentieth-century Americans. She argued that "It is probable that no other book, except the Bible, has had such world-wide popularity and impact." Ebbert went on to discuss the author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and the time in which the book was written.

The Congress of African Students (CAS) circulated it's first issue of their group's publication, "NIA-PURPOSE."

Sponsored by the Congress of African Students (CAS), the 3rd Annual Black Student Union Conference was held at Dickinson on September 27, 1980.

The Conference's keynote speaker was Dr. Marion Oliver, who spoke on the topic of "1980's: Challenge to Succeed" in the Social Hall. After Dr. Oliver's address, attendees of the Conference broke off into small discussion groups, ate a buffet dinner, and then had a "Disco" as a closing social event.

Su Kenderdine, a Dickinson senior, spent 11 weeks in Barbour County, Alabama volunteering with SCOPE (Summer Community Organization for Political Education). Kenderdine joined other Northern college students in the South with the goal of helping "Negroes better their lives by arousing an interest in education and government." As part of their work, Kenderdine and other SCOPE volunteers set up schools in counties across the South and tried to "better job opportunities for Southern Negroes."

In response to the posters put up by an anonymous student in protest of the Roe v. Wade anniversary posters of the Women's Center, Susannah Bartlow of the Women's Center created this lunch forum sponsered by the Women's Center, Office of Campus Life, Office of the Dean of Students, and Institutional and Diversity Initiatives.

"Personal Adventures in Race Relations" by Esther Popel Shaw (class of1919), Dickinson's first African American female graduate, was published in 1946. It addresses the sources of prejudice and racism, and she urges in her introduction that cooperation is necessary to overcome these detrimental assumptions regarding African Americans. "At a time when all our energies are needed to meet and solve together the crucial problems of the postwar period, we find a large element of the population torn by resentment, suspicion and hatred.