Video Feature: Silent Victors

January 2, 2010

As part of the college's yearlong celebration of the 125th anniversary of women at Dickinson, this fall the Women's Center hosted Silent Victors: Esther Popel Shaw and Women’s Activism, a discussion of the 1945 correspondence between Esther Popel Shaw '19  and Board of Trustees President Boyd Lee Spahr, class of 1900.

Shaw was disturbed by Dickinson’s policy of housing black students with black Carlisle families rather than the rest of the student body and opted to send her daughter to Howard University rather than her alma mater. As a vocal advocate for civil rights, Shaw politely but firmly let Spahr know that she disapproved of the college's policy.

Their letter exchange  served as a jumping-off point for a lively discussion of historic and contemporary racism.

To learn more about Esther Popel Shaw, who was also Dickinson's first African-American female graduate and a Harlem Renaissance writer, read "Straight Talk."