The 2015 ceremony featured 26 total graduates of the LGBT community and their allies. Graduates ranged from bachelor degrees to masters and doctorates. The ceremony began with Kirk Walter, the assistant director of Student Involvement, who welcomed the crowd.
“We came to celebrate our queer campus community as we are, for who we are and for what we’ve achieved,” Walter said.
The ceremony continued with a faculty presentation of the procession of colors, representative of the values of the LGBT community: sexuality and sexual expression, life, feeling and healing, sunlight, nature, magic and art, serenity and harmony and spirit. Graduates followed the procession to Beyoncé’s “I Was Here.”
A brief moment of silence was shared at the end of the procession for the silenced voices and missing faces of the LGBT community that could not be in attendance due to discrimination, persecution and violence.
Former Capstone Alliance President Jen Drouin then presented the Elliot Jackson Jones Memorial Scholarship to Sarah Young, a graduate assistant for Safe Zone at the University of Alabama. Young is active in the LGBT community both locally and nationally by serving on the Equality Alabama Board and Alabama Safe Schools Coalition, as well as recognized nationally as a White House Emerging LGBT Leader and Roundtable Discussion member.
Mathew Wimberly, the vice president of Spectrum, presented the student address, followed by the presentation of graduates. The Keynote Speaker was Alabama District 54 Representative Patricia Todd, the first and only openly gay elected official in Alabama. Rep. Todd recounted several of the challenges she encountered in the state legislature regarding the progress of LGBT rights.
“We’re going to win this battle,” Todd said “We may have a few scars at the end, but we will win in the end.”
Rep. Todd also congratulated Young on her grit and determination.
“She will change the lives of hundreds of people,” Todd said.
Brielle Appelbaum, a senior majoring in communications studies and a Lavender Graduate, was inspired to participate by the staff who work with Lavender Graduation at Alabama.
“Seeing our administrators in attendance this evening reaffirms that when we work together, we can foster a spirit of tolerance and acceptance for all students,” she said. “It’s crucial that we champion all of our peers the same way we do our football team.”
Rep. Todd concluded her speech to the graduates by stressing the importance of the work that each member of the community must continue to do on a personal level.
“Never underestimate the power of one,” Todd said. “You don’t need hundreds, just be that one. Remember to enjoy what’s about to come before you, but fight like Hell.”
The Lavender Graduation ceremony was founded at the University of Michigan to celebrate the educational achievements of students within the LGBT community and brought to The University of Alabama in 2011 by Meredith Bagley, an assistant communication studies professor, and her wife, Alexandrea Davenport.
