Making Space: Fighting for Inclusion, Building Community at UGA

In 1961, Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter became the first Black students to enroll at the University of Georgia. Facing down adversity, they succeeded in desegregating the campus and winning a battle in the broader struggle for civil rights. However, the process of integration and building a more inclusive university continues today. Making Space: Fighting for Inclusion, Building Community at UGA explores the stories of these trailblazing students and those that followed them in shaping the campus.

The exhibit considers the ways that Black and LGBTQ+ students have cultivated spaces for themselves at UGA since the 1960s, finding agency and building safe spaces. It will highlight their activities - how they gathered, lobbied, and protested for acceptance and change. It will consider the people and places that offered support to these students, as well as those that put up barriers to block the path forward.

Today, the university recognizes that each student is made up of many identities. The intersection of these different identities shape the perspective of each student and their experience on an ever-changing campus. Making Space will serve as a timely guide for thinking about and advocating for continued progress not just on one college campus, but within a nation that so often looks to its past as a roadmap to its future.

Acknowledgements

This exhibit was inspired by the 60th anniversary of UGA’s desegregation, and made possible through the hard work and contributions of many people on our team. Thank you to Chanara Andrews, our student curator who worked in the strange new world of 2020 to develop the exhibit script. Thank you to Steve Armour, university archives and electronic records archivist, for assisting with early discussions on content and direction and to Kat Stein, director of the Hargrett Library, for her support and encouragement. Thank you also to Mary Linnemann, who assisted with scanning and graphics creation; to Dr. Barbara McCaskill, Dr. Nan McMurray, and Patrice Green, who all served as outside readers for the script; to Diane Trap, who assisted with fact checking; and to Jan Hebbard who refined the script, selected items for display, and assisted with object retrieval and overall organization.