HANOVER — Stacey Abrams, a former Georgia state representative, activist and author, offered suggestions about how to navigate Donald Trump’s second term as president to a crowd of Dartmouth community members at the Hanover Inn on Wednesday evening.

“It feels like these have been terrible days,” she said. “Too often, though, we give credence to the bad, but no credit to the good.”

Although Abrams didn’t mention Trump by name, she referenced his new administration several times. “The flurry of executive orders was about understanding,” she said. “We now know what we face. The question is, what are we gonna do about it?”

Through stories about her time at Spelman College during the Rodney King verdict in 1992, and her grandparent’s first trip to the polls in 1968, Abrams urged the crowd to imagine creative futures and to act with conviction.

“In a moment as dark as this can be for so many, moral courage is the decision to imagine brighter, to imagine better, and to believe we have the power to demand the world we deserve,” Abrams said.

Abrams was the keynote speaker for the college’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration which included performances, award luncheons and several other speakers throughout the month of January.

From 2007 to 2017, Abrams served as a Georgia state representative, including seven years as House minority leader. She was the Democratic nominee for Georgia governor in 2018 and 2022, becoming the first Black woman to be the gubernatorial nominee for a major party in U.S. history.

Abrams is known nationally for her voting and civil rights activism and is often credited for mobilizing the Black vote in Georgia in 2020, helping former President Joe Biden and several other Democrats secure electoral wins in the state.

While finding his seat before the lecture, Dartmouth senior Matt Koff said he was looking for “advice for how to stay hopeful in the face of the next four years.”

Before Abrams took the stage, Jared Pugh, a Dartmouth senior and president of the college’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, chapter, addressed the crowd of about 250 people in-person and 100 on Zoom.

“Over the next four years and beyond, we are faced with the nauseating uncertainty about the lives of the marginalized,” Pugh said. “Despite the inevitable chains that are upon us, I implore you all to remain staunch in your courage to fight for what you believe is right and moral.”

After Abram’s 20-minute speech, Shontay Delalue, the college’s senior diversity officer at the college, joined Abrams on stage. In response to Delalue’s questions, Abrams described her experiences as a trailblazer for Black women in the country and called on attendees to speak out against book bans in their school districts.

The event came to a close with Abrams’ response to Delalue’s final question: “what is diversity, equity and inclusion?”

Diversity, equity and inclusion, often referred to as DEI, became a hot button issue this election cycle. On Tuesday, the Trump administration ordered all federal DEI workers to be put on paid leave by Wednesday evening.

“Diversity means all people, equity means fair access to opportunity, and inclusion means that there is a pathway for everyone to the American dream,” Abrams said. “You don’t attack something that aggressively if it wasn’t working. If DEI hadn’t created a nation where we have competition, where we have opportunity, where people are doing better than we ever expected, then there wouldn’t be a group of people who are terrified of it, trying to tear it down.”

Everyone should support DEI, Abrams said. “It means that all of us has an opportunity for more. It’s how we protect the American dream, it’s how we protect each other, it is how we build a society that we deserve,” she said.

Dartmouth seniors Cameron Moore and Tiana Davis lingered in their seats after Abrams left the stage. Davis, a sociology major, said Abrams inspired her to speak up more in class.

“It’s comforting knowing we can come to these events,” Moore said. “I appreciate the things (Abrams) said that act as a toolkit for navigating tough times.”

The final Dartmouth College Martin Luther King Jr. Day event is a conversation on equity in higher education with Anthony Abraham Jack, an associate professor of higher education leadership at Boston University. The event is scheduled for 5 to 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 29 in Filene Auditorium, on the lower level of the Moore Building, 3 Maynard St., and can also be livestreamed at http://dartgo.org/AnthonyJackLive. To register for the event go to: http://dartgo.org/AnthonyJack.

Emma Roth-Wells can be reached at erothwells@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.