Black Excellence
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1st Ever Black Student Body President Elected at Yale University
Yale University was founded in 1701 and is the third-oldest institute of higher learning in the United States. It is one of the nine Colonial Colleges, founded prior to the United States becoming a sovereign nation following the American Revolution. In its 318-year history, the college has never had a black student body president—until now.…
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Lonnie Bunch III Becomes First Ever Black Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution
Try as they may, black excellence can only be denied for so long. To that point, congratulations are in order to Lonnie G. Bunch III—founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture—who cracked the code and just became the first black person in the 173-year history of the Smithsonian Institution to…
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Yes, Oui, Cannes: Film Director Mati Diop Becomes First Black Woman Ever to Win
On Saturday, French-Senegalese director Mati Diop became the first black female filmmaker to win a prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the Independent reports. She was also the first black female director to ever have a film compete at Cannes. Diop, 36, took home the Grand Prix, the festival’s second-highest award, for her film Atlantics.…
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Homeless Student Awarded $3 Million in Scholarships, Named Valedictorian
For most high school students, their senior year is riddled with challenges. But outside of the demands of homework and having hormones on the fritz, 17-year-old Tupac Mosley of Memphis, Tenn., faces a particular challenge unlike anyone else in his graduating class: he’s homeless. Mosley refused to use his circumstances as an excuse not to…
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Sky's the Limit—Brooklyn to Rename Street in Honor of the Late Notorious B.I.G.'s 47th Birthday
Baby, Bay-bayyy! On the blessed day of May 21, 1972, Christoper George Latore Wallace, who would grow to be a man of many names—Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, Big Poppa, and more—was born. This year, 2019, marks what would’ve been the late legendary rapper’s 47th trip around the sun. Now, Brooklyn will immortalize him in a…
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2019 Peabody Awards: Pose and Random Acts of Flyness Among Honorees, FX to Debut Documentary TV Special on Winners
The 78th Annual Peabody Awards ceremony kicked off on Saturday, May 18 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City, and the category was…representation matters! Among the Peabody’s 30 honorees were FX’s hit show Pose and HBO’s critically acclaimed Random Acts of Flyness. The winners ranged from various mediums within entertainment such as television, documentaries,…
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Congrats, Grad! Morehouse Keynote Speaker Pays Off Debt of Graduating Class
Now we know exactly what it takes to upstage Angela Bassett: Forty million dollars, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. On a hard-earned day of celebration for hundreds of families, Morehouse upped the ante on black excellence. After the casually ethereal Bassett spoke, Robert F. Smith, the billionaire tech investor and philanthropist received an honorary doctorate…
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Meet Tay Anderson, the 20-Year-Old School Board Candidate Determined to Rescue the Denver Public School System From Itself
Everything about activist Tay Anderson screams “about that action.” In 2017, a 19-year-old Anderson spearheaded a 200-person “We Don’t Drink Ink” protest after Colorado-based Ink Coffee boasted “Happily Gentrifying Since 2014″ in its promotional materials—which was pretty damn brazen considering the cafe was located in Five Points, one of Denver’s oldest, historically black neighborhoods. But…
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T.I. Awards $25,000 College Scholarship in Memory of His Sister to an HBCU Student and Single Mom
T.I. is turning his personal pain into a bit of good fortune for a deserving college student. The rapper and reality-TV personality has started a scholarship fund in the name of his sister Antoinette “Precious” Harris Chapman, who died earlier this year. “My sister Precious was a single mother who worked to make life better…
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Mom of the Year Gets a Surprise When She Skips Her Own Graduation to Attend Her Son's
Mothers far too often go unrewarded for their tremendous sacrifices. But thankfully, Central Michigan University made it their mission to ensure that Sharonda Wilson received a surprise blessing for hers. When Sharonda discovered that her college graduation fell on the same date as her son Stephan’s, the decision was obvious: there was no way she…