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.

“It is a milestone that the Betty [Shabazz Cultural Center] has survived … the essence of the Betty has survived. Even though it has changed bodies, the essence still remains,” Dani Darku ’27 said as she walked across campus on Oct. 30, on her way to celebrate the 55th birthday of the Betty Shabazz Cultural Center. “We have to keep in mind that the school did not have the Betty in mind when it was being built. [The school] didn’t have the identities of Black students when it was being built, so we need to keep that in mind and come to the Betty because it is not about the distance, it's about the Betty being a home for us.”

Remembering those who came before us, who paved the way, who put in the work and fought for the right for Black students to be on this campus: these ideas were the sentiment of the weekend homecoming event celebrated by Black students at the Betty Shabazz Cultural Center from Sept. 21 to 22. The house was filled with students from all different class years and backgrounds with the common desire to interact and be in community with fellow Black students. The center, often referred to as the “Betty,” is described by the College as assisting and supporting students from the African diaspora through interactive programming.