As Morehouse College anticipates another year without a lavender graduation to celebrate LGBTQ students, a campus organization stepped up with the Circus Maximus Kiki Ball at Archer Hall on Friday.
Envisioned in part as a stand-in for the missing ceremony honoring LGBTQ graduates and to celebrate the end of the spring semester, the event hosted by the campus group Adodi drew roughly two dozen students for a ball featuring expression and visibility on their own terms.
“It’s an art form,” said Brighton Chipley, a 20-year-old junior biology major from Los Angeles. “You’re watching someone just feel and express — surrounded by other queer people. … It’s electrifying. That’s why we host balls.”
Ballroom culture at the esteemed men’s college has become one of the ways students carve out space. For some Morehouse students, Adodi events serve as a safe space and an introduction to Atlanta’s ballroom scene.
“They threw a ball in October at King Chapel and that was my first ball ever,” said Clayton Thomas, a 19-year-old freshman business administration major from Arkansas. “I really love ballrooming because it’s a medium of self-expression. … I can just be free and fluid.”
Though Friday’s event became a more informal ballroom session, it still underscored a deeper issue. Students say that while Morehouse has made visible gestures toward inclusion, institutional support for LGBTQ students remains limited, particularly when it comes to the lavender graduation.
Jordan Freeman, a graduating senior and the campus president of Adodi, told Capital B Atlanta last week that since Spelman College established its lavender ceremony, Morehouse students have been trying to get one set up on their campus, but to no avail.
Adodi operates as both a community hub and an advocacy group, often without consistent institutional backing, students said. Friday’s ball was sponsored by NAESM and Southern Legal Center for Youth. Myles Chapman, a sophomore business finance major from Denver, said the organization typically gets most of its support from sources outside of the administration.
Morehouse did not immediately respond to Capital B Atlanta’s request for comment.
“It is extremely upsetting,” said Allheim Devan-Bey, a 21-year-old senior psychology major from Pittsburgh and outgoing Adodi co-president. “Queer students often aren’t recognized for their resilience.”
That disconnect is something students say they navigate daily. Chapman described the challenge of being a feminine-presenting gay student at an all-male institution shaped by tradition.
“There is a lot of toxic masculinity … a lot of femme phobia,” Chapman said. And while the college acknowledges Pride Month and offers courses on gender and sexuality, “a lot of it is kind of performative.”
For many students, the answer has been to build their own support systems.
Thomas, the 19-year-old freshman, said finding that community at Morehouse has shaped his college experience.
“Since I found my foundation … I don’t have a hard time being here,” Thomas said. Still, he acknowledged that some students face homophobia and a broader “lack of acknowledgment” on campus.
The push for a lavender graduation remains ongoing. Some say they are prepared to organize one independently if necessary, continuing a pattern of student-led efforts to fill institutional gaps.
“We can’t wait for the administration to support us,” Chapman said. “We have to do it on our own … and carry our own legacy.”
Even without a full crowd or formal competition categories, spirits ran high at Friday’s event. Students cheered one another on and created a sense of belonging in a space that, for a few hours, felt separate from the pressures many described.
“Being a Morehouse man isn’t simply about how you present yourself on the outside,” Devan-Bey said. “It’s the way you carry yourself. They could have a lavender graduation at Morehouse to highlight the resilience that queer students have, because nine times out of 10 it is often the queer students who are the biggest examples of what a ‘Morehouse Man’ is supposed to be.”
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