Sharon Stone Honored For Anti-AIDS Work

After luring Jada Pinkett Smith to campus to accept its award for Artist of the Year, the Harvard Foundation has attracted another Hollywood honoree to Harvard.

Sharon Stone, the 2005 recipient of the Humanitarian of the Year award, which is given to individuals who have significantly contributed to the humanitarian cause, addressed members of the Harvard community and beyond last night as she accepted her honor and called for peace.

Stone drew on several personal experiences as she urged her listeners to continually celebrate humanity in their everyday lives, and to look within themselves for love and understanding.

“The purpose of my journey is to emphasize the possibility of celebrating humanity in a more simple fashion,” she said. “The ability to love and understand is so innate in me.”

Known by many for her work in film and television, Stone has also been widely commended for her work as the chair of the American Foundation for AIDS Research Campaign.

The Harvard School of Public Health AIDS Initiative helped to organize the event with the Harvard Foundation and Lowell House.

Stone joined members of the Foundation for lunch yesterday in Lowell House before delivering her remarks at Memorial Church last night, where she touched on her own personal experience as a mother.

She asked her audience how humans are at once capable of motherly love and narrow-minded intolerance.

“Which piece of us became intolerant, vicious, and angry?” she said.

Stone then optimistically continued, “when I release the intolerance inside myself, then I choose to be one step closer to the peacefulness for which I strive.”

Reminding Harvard students of their ability to influence the future of humanitarianism, Stone teared up as she delivered a plea to focus on the dream of peace.

“You have great opportunity to forge and change the future,” she said, urging students to remember the works and dreams of leading humanitarians in our history like Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lennon. She reminded her audience that, in spite of their passings, the dreams of these influential figures have not been forgotten.

“You must remember that you cannot kill a dream if you shoot it in the head,” Stone said.

Echoing King’s famous words, Stone concluded, “I have a dream: peace.”

Mark G. Hariz ’08, who listened to Stone’s words last night, emphasized the effectiveness of Stone’s personal anecdotes.

“She took a unique approach,” he said. “Relating this cause to her personal experience with her own children made it feel close to home.”

Nina Slywotzky ’08 also said that she found Stone’s experience moving.

“She called on her talents as an actress, speaker, and human being,” she said. “This combination was highly effective.”