Photo Credits: Thandiwe-Wanjiru Delgado-Kinyatti ’27
Thandiwe-Wanjiru Delgado-Kinyatti ’27
Staff Writer
The residents of the Shirley Chisholm Living Learning Community celebrated the 100th birthday of the community’s namesake, previous Mount Holyoke College Professor of Anthropology and Sociology Shirley Chisholm, on Nov. 22. Chisholm, who died in 2005, would have turned 100 years old on Nov. 30. To honor her legacy and importance to the College, the community’s many residents of the third and fourth floor of North Rockefeller Hall gathered at the Betty Shabazz Cultural Center for a community dinner organized by Shirley Chisholm LLC Resident Advisors Karoline Bastien ’27 and Madoussou Dem ’27.
Shirley Chisholm was the first Black woman to be elected into Congress in 1968. In 1972, she was the first woman and Black person to run and seek nomination for president from the Democratic Party. Chisholm also has a special tie to Mount Holyoke College; in 1983, she joined the Mount Holyoke community as a professor, teaching anthropology and sociology. The LLC named after her is described on the College’s website as “a community for students who are of African descent, identify within the African Diaspora and/or wish to foster connections between different cultures within the diaspora.”
Students might not be able to take Chisholm’s classes today, but they still honor her by living in the space named after her and celebrating her birth year after year.
For the celebration, the Betty Shabazz Cultural Center was decorated with balloons, as well as pan-African and Barbadian flags, as Chisholm's family is from Barbados. Attendees were given mugs designed by the RAs that had Chisholm’s famous saying, “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair,” written on them.
When students at the dinner were asked about their experience in the Shirley Chisholm LLC — commonly abbreviated to just “the Shirley” — they all had positive things to say. When asked about how she feels celebrating Chisholm’s birthday and living in the LLC, Fatma Abdel Maksoud ’27 expressed amazement and gratitude.
“I think it is kind of insane that it’s her one hundredth birthday,” Maksoud said. “I think a lot about the fact that a lot of really important Black figures would be alive today if not for what they experienced in the past. I also absolutely love living in the Shirley … the Shirley really does make the Rockies.”
Maksoud added, “I think I go back to my dorm and it feels like home and I often think about that fact that I am rarely ever going to be in a situation where I am surrounded by so many Black people at one time, so I really treasure all the time that I actually spend in the lounge with other people. The Shirley makes me forget I go to a PWI [predominantly white institution].”
Many people shared similar sentiments, feeling that the Shirley is a place where they feel safe in a predominately white institution like Mount Holyoke. An attendee from New England said, “It makes me very happy to be in community with people who look like me. It’s something that I didn’t get a whole lot living in New England, a very white area. It's just great to feel like I belong somewhere.”
Another student from New England said, “I really enjoyed my experience at the Shirley, especially because I come from another PWI and I didn’t have a Living Learning [Community] like this. I mainly had to find my friend groups through classes and our Black affinity space, so I think living with all the people who look like me was just a really comforting thing … I’m really glad I’m here.”
Andrea Kekula ’27, who continued to live in the Shirley after her first year, said, “As a person of color, especially going to this PWI, the Shirley is the one place I call my home away from home … the community here is great and every year celebrating Shirley’s [birthday] is very monumental to me and my experience here at Mount Holyoke.”
Chisholm’s birthday brought the Shirley LLC together once again, with a room full of students laughing and expressing their love for the dorm they are able to live in. Student feedback regarding the event reflected the importance of identity-based LLCs on campus for students who are under-represented on the Mount Holyoke campus.
“LLCs are my identity, as a woman of color,” Kekula said. “I love being [a part of] the Shirley because I have my family here.”
Madeleine Diesl ’28 contributed fact-checking.