Too many times people focus on the worst my people produce. In addition, sisters don't get much love for doing something positive. Today I get to proudly pop my collar on behalf on my people and a lovely young woman for a historic achievement.
21 year old Gary, IN native Katie Washington is a senior at Notre Dame University and has bee accepted to Harvard and four other schools for post graduate studies.
Thanks to her 4.0 GPA in biology major and Catholic social teaching minor, Katie will become the first African-American in the 168 year history of Notre Dame to be crowned as the school's valedictorian.
University officials said they couldn’t recall ever having a black valedictorian, and don’t keep record of their race.Katie will give that valedictory address on May 16.
'I am humbled,' Katie said to the Northwest Indiana Times. “I am in a mode of gratitude and thanksgiving right now.”
'Katie works so hard,' Washington’s mother Jean Tomlin told the newspaper. 'I told her when she went to Notre Dame, ‘You are representing your family, your church and the city of Gary. Make us proud.’
Katie done more than make her family and the city of Gary proud. She made the entire Black community proud.
She'll be heading to Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University in the fall and plans to pursue a joint M.D./Ph.D.
You may want to file the name Katie Washington away in your memory banks. She's a young scholar who may be on the track of making more history.
Congratulations, Katie on the historic achievement! You're also proof along with our spacefaring sistah Stephanie Wilson that sistahs can and do excel in math and science.
H/T The Field Negro
