Inside Montgomery Public Schools' new partnership with the Equal Justice Initiative
In the fall of 2022, Montgomery Public Schools Superintendent Melvin Brown and Equal Justice Initiative Executive Director Bryan Stevenson met for the first time to discuss the challenges and needs of MPS students.
One particular topic struck Stevenson: the financial barrier to higher education that many students face, both in Montgomery and throughout the country.
From there, a new partnership was born. MPS and EJI announced their first collaboration earlier this month, with EJI committing $1 million to scholarships for Montgomery public high school graduates over the next three years.
“Our partnership with EJI has already proved to be invaluable, and the Legacy Scholars initiative will have a huge impact on the lives of some very deserving students. Our goal is to provide equity, access and opportunity to all our students, and EJI is helping us achieve that objective,” Brown said in a statement.
Starting in May, select seniors from each MPS high school will receive $10,000 scholarships, becoming Legacy Scholars upon graduation. Teachers and administrators have full discretion to choose scholarship recipients, but Stevenson asked that qualities like resilience, leadership and drive be valued just as much as students’ grades.
“We wanted to do more to affirm and acknowledge the importance of staying in school, graduating and aspiring to deepen education,” Stevenson said. “We saw the scholarship program as a way to help students in need, but also to create an identity in this community that doing well in school, aspiring to go to college can also be a way of distinguishing yourself.”
Last school year, MPS’s graduation rate was 84.53%, and only 51.64% of students displayed college and career readiness, according to the Alabama Department of Education.
Stevenson himself grew up in a rural, racially segregated part of Delaware, and had it not been for an athletic scholarship, he said he would not have had the opportunity to go to college. His undergraduate education launched him into the career he has now — leading EJI, reforming criminal justice and memorializing lynching victims across the country, among other things.
“I just think that there are a lot of kids in that situation,” Stevenson said.
The partnership and scholarship opportunities serve as an extension of EJI’s anti-poverty initiative, which the nonprofit began last year with a program to feed food-insecure families. During the buildout, Stevenson and other members of EJI’s team developed relationships with around 600 families across the state who needed help.
“It became clear that what a lot of these parents want for their kids is to get the kind of education that allows them to break some of the cycles of poverty,” Stevenson said. “For kids that have ambition, but don't have the resources, I think that caused us to recognize that supporting education has to be a part of this anti-poverty initiative.”
EJI and MPS already have other aspects of their partnership in place, as well. EJI has been hosting weekly sessions with teachers and administrators to work through challenges in their work, and next year, a similar gathering will be available for students. Internship opportunities and other resources are also in the works.
Hadley Hitson covers the rural South for the Montgomery Advertiser and Report for America. She can be reached at hhitson@gannett.com. To support her work, subscribe to the Advertiser or donate to Report for America.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Inside Equal Justice Initiative's partnership with Montgomery schools
