Thanks to a gift from financial services organization TIAA-CREF, Michigan State University doctoral candidate Ronald Jackson II will study entertainers’ response to apartheid in South Africa.
With research interests in African American and South African history, Jackson will use the Ruth Simms Hamilton Graduate Merit Fellowship to explore the experiences and contributions of students involved in activism against Jim Crow laws in the United States and apartheid in South Africa during the 20th century.
An instructor in MSU’s Department of History, Jackson will receive $10,000 to conduct his research in the United States and South Africa.
Named after longtime MSU social science professor Ruth Simms Hamilton, who died in 2003, the fellowship provides tuition, stipends and research costs. Doctoral students whose research is related to the African Diaspora are eligible to apply.
“TIAA-CREF is honored to recognize the contributions and the life of Dr. Hamilton through this fellowship, and to see her legacy carried on through the work of students like Ronald,” said Jerome Miller, senior vice president and chief diversity officer at TIAA-CREF. “It’s particularly meaningful to be presenting the fellowship this year as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act and the 60th anniversary of the Brown vs. the Board of Education decision with MSU’s Project 60/50.”
For decades, Hamilton worked with MSU graduate students to investigate the international presence and societal status of African descendants once they left the African continent.
During her 35-year career at MSU, Hamilton was director and founder of the African Diaspora Research Project and a core faculty member of the African Studies Center and Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
In addition, she served as an executive board member for TIAA-CREF, also sitting on the board’s corporate governance and social responsibility committees.
In 2005, TIAA-CREF established the Ruth Simms Hamilton Research Fellowship at TIAA-CREF. The fellowship supported students throughout a six-year period, awarding fellowships to one or more graduate students studying the African diaspora at an accredited U.S. college or university. By establishing the new endowment at MSU last year, TIAA-CREF brought the fellowship back to Hamilton’s home university.
TIAA-CREF is a national financial services organization with $564 billion in assets under management and is the leading provider of retirement services in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields.