Events

In honor of Black History Month, today Wiggin and Dana’s Alumni Committee, Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity Committee, and the Wiggin Opportunity Initiative hosted a conversation with Dr. Charlton D. McIlwain: Remember When the Internet Was Black?  Firm partners, employees, alumni, and guests learned about the Black Internet pioneers, content creators, and entrepreneurs of the late 1980s/1990s and those hidden figures’ role in the Internet’s creation and evolution.

Activists, pundits, politicians, and the press frequently proclaim today’s digitally mediated racial justice activism the new civil rights movement, but according to Dr. McIlwain, the story of racial justice movement organizing online is much longer and varied than most people know.  Dr. McIlwain, Vice Provost of Faculty Engagement & Development at New York University; Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU’s Steinhardt School; and Founder of the Center for Critical Race & Digital Studies chronicles the long relationship between African Americans, computing technology, and the Internet.