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Please support the Inaugural Kiburi Scholarship
As The Alliance Group (T.A.G) President and a SJA Fellow, Shabre is committed to promoting acceptance, fostering an LGBTQ+ inclusive climate, and educating the UDC campus community through intergroup dialogue, awareness events, community engagement, and national and local partnership. The CDIMA has teamed up with the LGBTQ Advisory Council during LGBTQ history month to launch the Inaugural Kiburi (“Pride” in Swahili) Scholarship for LGBTQ+ identified students in honor of the one most celebrated, black & openly gay performance poets of his generation, Essex Hemphill. Essex Hemphill graduated from UDC in 1982 with his bachelor degree in English, and in the spirit of reclaiming black queer history at HBCUs, the scholarship is named in his memory and honor, and his commitment to speaking truth, living authentically, and confronting the oppression & discrimination of black LGBTQ+ people.
We have a goal of raising $5,000 to support LGBTQ+identified students in their studies at UDC. LGBTQ+/Non-binary students at HBCUs historically have faced a hostile social and institutional environment. In 2005, TAG (the only LGBTQ student-led organization at UDC) was founded as a response to the lack of resources and support for the LGBTQ+ community. It was later rechartered in 2018 to foster an LGBTQ+ inclusive climate and educate the UDC campus community. Black Queer people have a history of being erased or invisibilized at HBCUs, and this scholarship is a reclamation of Essex Hemphill to support LGBTQ+ students who are in need so they, too, someday can make history.
Please support the Inaugural Kiburi Scholarship this LGBTQ+ history month, consider assisting our efforts, and become a fundraiser.