Daily Beast profiles recent alumnus who co-founded SU Well Dressed
.jpg)
Kwame Phipps describes how he and his Syracuse roommates
co-founded the movement as a way to challenge racial stereotypes.
In a recent article at The Daily Beast, Kwame
Phipps '16 (PSc/CCE) describes the day that, coincidentally, he and his two
roommates left their apartment each dressed for business. It wasn’t planned; they
had separate reasons to don business attire that day. But they noticed how
others noticed.
And so the Well Dressed Movement at Syracuse University was
born, to promote better dress habits among Phipps’s peers and to counter
misperceptions. It had not been long
since the high-profile killings of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, and discussion
of race on campuses such as Syracuse was robust.
According to the article’s author, Craig Mills, “Dressing up
was a constructive response to address perceptions others might have about
them. [Phipps and his roommates] took inspiration from earlier black pioneers
who tackled social justice issues. The group’s motto, When you look good, you feel good, facilitated engagement with
their peers. Their movement took hold and spread to other campuses, including
Binghamton, Cornell, Howard, and Pace universities and Utica College, which
validated their efforts.”
Read more about Kwame in The Daily Beast article, "How
the Well Dressed Movement Demolished Black Stereotypes."