By Richard Ray:
Micheal Brown is a relatively common name.In fact if you google the name the first person that pops up is the Mike Brown that was killed by cops in Ferguson, Missouri and who’s death spawned massive protests. However, there is little common about what the 17 year old high school senior from Mirabeau B. Lamar High School has achieved. Micheal Brown has been accepted into all twenty colleges that he has applied. Beyond the acceptance he has received full merit and need based scholarships as well as an additional $260,000 in scholarship and aid offers.
Micheal Brown has only ever received one B in his academic lifetime and was heavily involved in his school’s debate team participating in mock trials and student government for years, in part inspired by Barack Obama. Micheal has yet to make a choice for college but his top eight schools are Harvard, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Yale, Georgetown and Northwestern.
Just in case some of you MAGA skeptics think that this is another case of affirmative action at its worst, beside his extracurricular activities, Micheal Brown had a grade point average of 4.68, and SAT score of 1540 out of 1600 and an ACT score of 34 out of 36. Micheal is quick to point to his mother, Berthinia Rutledge-Brown as his greatest inspiration. Micheal Brown also points to several organizations like Questbridge, Emerge Fellowship and Breakthrough Collaborative which match students from low-income communities with higher education opportunities as influential in his success and putting him in contact with other students on similar paths.
As Micheal Brown humbly points out, there are many other students of color that are high achievers. Unfortunately their accomplishments are not recognized or celebrated enough. Far too often negative images of young teens, particularly of color, are promoted in news cycle with an imbalance of the good and positive achievements that many in those same communities amass un-noticed.
I salute Micheal Brown and others like him. There are incredible organizations out there like the ones mentioned as well as The Oliver Scholars, Prep for Prep and Go To College NYC that specialize in helping disadvantaged youth get opportunities that may have otherwise been out of their reach or even knowledge. If you have an opportunity look up some of these organizations or even make tax free donations I strongly encourage you to do so. Their missions have played parts in producing some of the most productive members of our society while adding to diversity in shining a light on what makes America truly great: seeing people thrive when presented with opportunities for greatness.
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