Lance Gross, Laila Pruitt, Gail Bean, &…
Under an administration that has not too long ago cut federal funding for HBCUs, Ashley Christopher’s HBCU Week Foundation is doing important work.
Source: HBCU Week Foundation
Founded in 2017, the HBCU Week Foundation was created to promote HBCU enrollment to high college college students. Students are supplied with a homecoming expertise with thrilling occasions like academic panels, musical performances, and an annual faculty truthful.
Source: HBCU Week Foundation / HBCU Week Foundation
We made our manner to Wilmington, Delaware, to partake in the festivities – beginning with the HBCU Week live performance collection that featured headlining performances from Okay. Michelle and Juvenile.
Source: HBCU Week Foundation / HBCU Week Foundation
Source: HBCU Week Foundation / HBCU Week Foundation
Source: HBCU Week Foundation / HBCU Week Foundation
Source: HBCU Week Foundation / HBCU Week Foundation
The vibes continued the next night at the VIP reception, where Christopher offered the group’s first-ever Arts and Entertainment scholarship in partnership with Femme It Forward founder Heather Lowry. The scholarship will help an incoming or current HBCU pupil pursuing a degree in the humanities and leisure industries.
“I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I had such a love for advocacy and law, but also the entertainment industry,” the lawyer and group founder said. “I couldn’t figure out how I could make that a job and that’s how I built HBCU Week, to marry the two things. But oftentimes the arts get overlooked when it comes to scholarship dollars and support to get through your four-year institutions.”
To shed gentle on the facility of HBCU excellence in leisure, Christopher invited celeb friends like Gail Bean, HBCU alumni Lance Gross and Stephen A. Smith, and current HBCU pupil Laila Pruitt.
Pruitt, a current senior at Howard University and star of BMF, shared how her HBCU formed her growth as a girl in maturity.
“There’s a big, big fashion community at my school. To be able to step foot onto a campus that you just see a whole bunch of Black fashion, and it’s one of the places where our culture’s fashion is birthed from — it’s really amazing to see. It sort of helped me get into my style, a little bit into my feminine side.”
The 21-year-old also had phrases of encouragement for younger creatives trying to pursue their passions while in college. “I’m not gonna lie and say that it’s not difficult at times [and] that you won’t have to plan weeks in advance for certain things. You’ll have to be extremely communicative with whoever’s behind you and in your corner. But, it’s absolutely possible, and it’s something that you can do if you lean into it and believe in yourself.”
Fellow Howard Bison and father of 2, Lance Gross, mentioned how his time at an HBCU formed him as a father and husband.
“It just strengthened everything that I knew. I came from a household with both parents in the house, and I came from a household of love. I constantly saw my dad loving on my mom, and my mom loving on my dad, and us loving on each other as a family,” he told BOSSIP. “So going to Howard, that was kind of strengthened, because I saw it in the relationships that I had at Howard [and] the relationships that I had with my professors being like aunties and uncles and pushing me to be great.”
ESPN sports activities analyst and Winston-Salem State University graduate, Stephen A.Smith, provided related sentiments about the familial nature of HBCUs.
“I’ll never give more credit to an HBCU than I give to my mother, God rest her soul, because it starts with her. What she’s instilled in me, HBCUs helped reinforce,” he said. “To this day, there’s a particular professor named Marilyn Roseboro who used to work at Winston-Salem State as a professor. She retired years ago. To this day, everybody knows to get to me, you have to go through her, because that’s how much she meant to me.”
Snowfall and P-Valley actress Gail Bean, a proud supporter of HBCUs and member of Delta Sigma Theta, Inc., shared the significance of HBCUs and occasions like HBCU Week.
“We have to create safe spaces [like] HBCUs,” she said. “These events are important so we can network and share resources [while] also making sure that we’re sharing knowledge when it comes to educating the youth, keeping our youth safe, and protecting their minds.”
Education was actually at the top of thoughts the next day when 1000’s of high college college students bused in for the ninth annual HBCU Week faculty truthful. At the truthful, college students met with HBCUs from across the nation and even obtained faculty acceptances on the spot.
It wouldn’t be an HBCU homecoming-esque expertise without good music, so MC Blake Saunders and DJ Blair had been in the building to keep the power up while taking part in all the hits like “Swag Surf” (of course), to which the scholars energetically engaged in the traditional dance, persevering with the HBCU custom.
Is it even an HBCU expertise without strolling? This yr, HBCU Week hosted its first-ever stroll-off competitors that provided the profitable sorority and fraternity $2500 each. After competing in a multi-round competitors, stacked with routines that mixed new and old style music, the Epsilon Alpha chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and Psi Epsilon Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity took home the grand prize.
BOSSIP was glad to be in the building for such a celebration of HBCU excellence and energy. Even as HBCUs face threats to their existence, HBCU Week continues to showcase its advocacy not only for these historic establishments but for the youth they serve.
HBCU Week Foundation
HBCU Week Foundation
HBCU Week Foundation
HBCU Week Foundation
HBCU Week Foundation
HBCU Week Foundation
HBCU Week Foundation
HBCU Week Foundation
HBCU Week Foundation
HBCU Week Foundation
HBCU Week Foundation
HBCU Week Foundation
HBCU Week Foundation
The post Lance Gross, Laila Pruitt, Gail Bean, & Stephen A. Smith Join Ashley Christopher’s HBCU Week Foundation In Celebrating HBCU Excellence [Exclusive] appeared first on GWN.
