The Martin Luther King Celebration Committee honored the late Meleia Willis-Starbuck '07, who died this summer of a gunshot wound, with the Emerging Leadership Award Friday at the Fifth Annual Social Justice Awards in the Hopkins Center.
In total, three student organizations and five individuals, including former Vermont poet laureate Grace Paley '98H, received awards as part of a month-long celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Thokozani Xaba '89 and Matthew Wilson '83 received Ongoing Commitment Awards, while the committee honored Nick Kotz '55 and Paley with the Lester B. Granger '18 Award for Lifetime Achievement. Student organizations Darfur Action Group, Engineers Without Borders and Outdoor Leadership Experience also received distinctions.
Willis-Starbuck is both the first person to receive a Social Justice Award posthumously and the first to garner such an honor without a college degree. The committee felt that Willis-Starbuck's record of service demonstrated that she would have earned the award had she lived longer, assistant director of conferences and special events Christine Crabb said.
"Meleia, like many students on campus, was very engaged in social justice work. Unlike most people, however, she died for her work," Ozzie Harris, chair of the Martin Luther King Celebration Committee and Special Assistant to the President for Institutional Diversity and Equity, said.
Willis-Starbuck worked in Berkeley, Calif., at the Women's Daytime Drop-In Center this summer. She was allegedly shot in a Berkeley neighborhood by her friend, Christopher Hollis, whom she had asked to bring the gun that eventually killed her.
Paley, an antiwar and feminist activist, received a standing ovation after reading an autobiographical short story, entitled "Traveling," which chronicled her experience with Jim Crow laws on long distance buses.
Five years ago, the Martin Luther King Celebration Committee established these awards in order to honor friends and members of the Dartmouth community who have contributed significantly to peace, civil rights, education, public health, environmental justice or social justice.
"We are looking for people who demonstrate a commitment to social justice. These awards are not only to acknowledge individuals but to also remind the community of what people are doing," Harris said.
Committee members said that they hope these awards send a message to the Dartmouth community.
"The Martin Luther King Committee hopes that these awards help inspire and let Dartmouth students realize there are graduates doing these types of things," Crabb said.
The Martin Luther King Committee in the Office of Institutional Diversity is accepting nominations for the 2007 awards until Aug. 1.
