Hip-hop superstar Jay-Z and his wife, Beyoncé, have announced a new scholarship program that will award 10 scholarships worth $100,000 each to “exceptional” high school seniors who demonstrate financial needs.
“This back to school season, students in the On The Run II Tour markets, who are preparing for college, will be chosen by Boys and Girls Club of America,” according to a joint press release from Beyoncé’s “BeyGOOD Initiative” and Jay Z’s “The Shawn Carter Foundation.”
“Qualified students must demonstrate academic excellence and show financial needs that would make it hard for them to enter college or university for the academic year 2018-2019,” the release noted.
The markets will include Atlanta, Orlando, Miami, Arlington, Texas; New Orleans, Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Clara, and Seattle.
The power couple has had a long history of helping students with The Shawn Carter Foundation spearheading college tours to historically Black colleges and universities and providing scholarships to college bound students throughout the country.
Through her BeyGOOD initiative, Beyoncé created the Formation Scholars Award, a merit program to help female students start or further their college education, and this year they announced the Homecoming Scholars Award, a second merit program, opened to qualified students, regardless of gender, to enter or continue their studies at one of eight HBCUs.
Thirty Hampton City Schools educators spent mornings July 23-26 learning the details regarding the first African Arrival in English North America from subject matter experts. Thirty Hampton City Schools educators spent mornings July 23-26 learning the details regarding the first African Arrival in English North America from subject matter experts. The initiative is part of an effort to clarify the details of the 1619 arrival so that youth of Hampton, Virginia, and the nation learn the facts of this pivotal occurrence in American history.
As witnessed and recorded by John Rolfe, the first tobacco planter in the Virginia colony, on August 20, 1619, the White Lion entered the Chesapeake Bay, docked at Point Comfort (present day Hampton) with Africans from the country Angola, of the Bantu culture. They spoke the languages of the Kimbundu and Kikongo. Many were literate and hailed from highly organized societies.
Two of those Africans, named Antoney and Isabell, became servants of Captain William Tucker, Commander of the fort at Point Comfort. Around 1623 or 1624, the union of Isabell and Antoney birthed the first African child in English North America, named William Tucker. The other arriving Africans were interspersed within the Virginia colony, from Elizabeth City County to Jamestown.
Hampton 2019 Commemorative Commission Co-Chairs Dr. Colita Fairfax and Lt. Col. (Ret.) Claude Vann, were among the discussion leaders.
