Yale Daily News: Annual Lecture Honors Three Black Muslim Women Leaders
On Saturday, Rutgers professor and anthropologist Donna Auston held a talk titled “If It Wasn’t For the Women: The Activist Legacies of Louise Little, Ella Collins and Betty Shabazz,” which highlighted the contributions of the three leaders to the civil rights movement.
The Zoom webinar, which started at 6 p.m., is the third annual lecture honoring the life and work of Malcolm X — who is also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz — and Betty Shabazz.
Lydia Burleson served as the Communications and Alumni Engagement Associate for Dwight Hall at Yale, Center for Public Service and Social Justice from June 2021-June 2022. A first-generation low-income student from rural Texas, Lydia graduated from Yale cum laude in 2021 with a degree in English and a nonfiction creative writing concentration. During her college years, Lydia increased awareness of marginalized voices with the public writing she did for The Yale Daily News and the Yale Admissions office. Her Dwight Hall experiences included free college advising with student-led member groups REACH and Matriculate. Dwight Hall empowered Lydia to uplift other disadvantaged students and to increase access to education for people who might not have otherwise received these resources. She is currently completing an English PhD at Stanford University with a Knight-Hennessy Fellowship.
