Days-Massolo Center

Richard Burns '77, executive director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Community Center in New York City, will present a lecture, “LGBTQ Rights: Past, Present and Future” on Wednesday, May 1, at 5 p.m., in the Red Pit, KJ. Burns will discuss how he connected his passion for social justice to a career and what he sees as the past, present and future of the LGBTQ rights movement. The lecture is free, open to the public and sponsored by the Days-Massolo Center.

More than half of working-age African American men in the United States have a criminal record. This statistic does not include those who are currently in jail or prison, who have effectively lost their voice and their status as individuals of worth. On April 17, Michelle Alexander, associate professor of law at Ohio State University, presented a lecture on mass incarceration and her bestselling book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The visit was presented by The Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center, the Chief Diversity Officer and the Days-Massolo Center.

Filmmaker Thomas Keith will screen his film “The Bro Code: How Contemporary Culture Creates Sexist Men,” on Tuesday, March 12, at 4 p.m., in the Kirner-Johnson Building’s Red Pit. Keith will facilitate a discussion of the film following the showing. The screening is sponsored by the Days-Massolo Center and is free and open to the public.

Hamilton’s Maurice Horowitch Career Center is without doubt one of the most valuable assets on campus for students preparing to make the transition off the Hill and into the “real world,” but sometimes stepping through the doorway and into the third floor of Bristol can be a little intimidating. To address this issue, the Career Center has teamed up with the Days-Massolo Center to offer a collaborative workshop series spread out over the course of the second semester.

Two events featuring Cultural Odyssey’s Rhodessa Jones and Idris Ackamoor will take place on Monday, Feb. 25, and Wednesday, Feb 27. The events are free and open to the public and no tickets are required.

Director André Robert Lee will screen his autobiographical film, The Prep School Negro, on Thursday, Feb. 21, at 5:30 p.m., in the Red Pit, Kirner-Johnson Building. Lee will host a discussion with the audience following the film. The screening is sponsored by the Days-Massolo Center and is free and open to the public.

Hamilton College will commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a lecture by Syracuse University Law Professor Paula Johnson and a dinner on Monday, Jan. 28, beginning at 5:30 p.m. in the Tolles Pavilion.  A soul food dinner menu will be served.  The event is free for Hamilton students, faculty and staff but reservations are necessary. Click here to reserve.

Amit Taneja, director of the Days-Massolo Center, was an invited speaker on serving the mental health and social services needs of diverse communities at Onondaga Case Management Services, Inc.

Amit Taneja, director of the Days-Massolo Center, served as a consultant and trainer for a new Safezone program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

On Feb. 26, 2012, an unarmed 17-year-old African American man named Trayvon Martin was fatally shot in Sanford, Fla. At the time the case did not attract much media attention, though it has since become of the most covered news stories of 2012. Daniel Maree, a senior digital strategist for advertising agency McCann New York, sparked a massive movement and mobilized hundreds of thousands of people to show their support for the Martin family and for racial equality generally. He spoke at Hamilton on Oct. 17 about his vision for the younger generation’s potential to create change in the world.

Amit Taneja, director of the Days-Massolo Center, facilitated a conversation on inclusion at Mohawk Valley Community College in Utica on Oct. 4. Taneja was invited by MVCC leaders to help create a dialogue on inclusive practices and strategies, and the presentation was also live-streamed to the MVCC Rome campus.

On Sept. 27, members of the Hamilton community gathered in the Events Barn to listen as Kiese Laymon read his essay, “How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: A Remembrance,” an intimate and personal account of Laymon’s teenage years growing up in Jackson, Mississippi. The silence was palpable as the audience listened to the tale of Laymon’s traumatic past and inspiring message.

Author and Vassar College professor  Kiese Laymon will give a reading and discussion about the lived experience of racism in America on Thursday, Sept. 27, at 7:30 p.m., in the Fillius Events Barn. The talk “How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: A Remembrance,” is free and open to the public.

Suzanne Goldberg, professor of law at Columbia University, will discuss Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, & Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ) Refugees and U.S. immigration policies and practices in a lecture on Monday, Sept. 24, at 4 p.m., in the Red Pit, KJ.  The discussion will pertain to those seeking asylum from persecution based on sexual orientation and gender identity/expression. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Dietra Harvey grew up in a household where critical citizenship and voting were basic tenets of family life. Today, in the same way she was brought into the voting booth as a young girl by her parents, Harvey carries on the tradition by bringing her own children to the polls every November.

Amit Taneja, director of the Days-Massolo Center, was one of four national experts invited to review the LGBT Services Office at Wellesley College.

“My name is Helen Sperling. I am a Jew. I am a survivor.” With these simple words, Helen Sperling began to recount her experience of the Holocaust before a crowd of Hamilton students and community members packed into the Chapel. During the course of the two-hour-long lecture, which was sponsored by the Days-Massolo Center and Hillel, Sperling recounted the darkest moments of her life with a vigor and compassion that belied her 92 years. Throughout her time in Polish ghettos and prison camps, Sperling’s indomitable spirit sustained her in the face of incredible hardship and heart-wrenching sorrow.

Dorothy Roberts, Kirkland & Ellis Professor at Northwestern University School of Law, will present a lecture on Wednesday, April 18, at 7:30 p.m., in the Chapel. The lecture, “Fatal Invention: Re-creating Race in the 21st Century,” is based on her 2011 book of the same name and is free and open to the public.