Last spring, Anthony Wright reached out to his best friend, Brian Allen, to find a way to publicly celebrate the accomplishments of African-American recipients of advanced degrees across the country. The two have been best friends since their undergraduate years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and both were finishing up master’s degrees in higher education.
Wright and Allen launched the hashtag #BlackandHooded to increase the visibility of black students in higher education and to create a network. One year later for this graduation commencement season, the friends are once again promoting the hashtag to a new class of African-American graduate students and #BlackandHooded has already been used more than 10,000 times across social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
“This is no longer about just social media,” Allen told UW-Madison news. “We think this has the potential to change the ideology and thought patterns around black students and education.
“I love that folks who invested time, money and work in acquiring advanced degrees are boldly declaring themselves black and hooded,” he adds. “It really combats the idea that black undergraduates are not inclined to pursue advanced degrees or that they are prone to dropping out of graduate school. It changes the narrative.”
The hashtag is also meant to combat stereotypes about Black representation and achievement.
“Representation is huge,” Wright told Madison365 in an interview last summer. Wright earned his masters in higher education from Indiana University and who works as a career counselor for the UW-Madison School of Business. “A lot of black students have aspirations to go to graduate school but no one to look up to, talk to about their journey, connect with about their specific degree and university. The hashtag allows for Black graduates across the nation and world to serve as that connection and that opportunity for Black undergraduates to see people like them pursuing their post-bachelor’s degrees.”
“Personally, when I first even thought about applying for graduate school I really didn’t understand what it was about,” Allen told Madison365 in an interview last summer. Allen earned his masters in higher education from Columbia University. “I didn’t have many mentors or folks who I could reach out to who were in graduate school at the time and so even at the start of my process, I think that lack of representation really limited my scope of knowledge around what a postsecondary education degree meant.”
For the 2018-19 academic year, #BlackandHooded plans to award six $500 scholarships to first-year African-American graduate students pursuing advanced or professional degrees. The scholarship application will go live on June 1 on the #BlackandHooded website. Applications are due July 31. To learn more about the scholarship fund and ways to donate, click here.
