'A Better Chance' program celebrates 50th anniversary

At the crux of the civil rights movement, the “A Better Chance” program was founded to level the inequality of the educational playing field by placing minority students in prestigious high schools. Fifty years later, the program is still serving the community and honoring schools that have helped fulfill this mission.

On Thursday, members of the ABC community gathered in College Hall for a breakfast to celebrate the program’s 50th anniversary and to honor exceptional contributions to the program.

Eighteen high schools attended the event, and five — Lawrenceville School, Mercersburg Academy Westtown School, Peddie School and St. Andrew’s School — were honored with the ABC Access Award for the Mid-Atlantic Region. This award was presented to high schools that have good relations with the ABC program and exceptional histories of placing scholars into institutions of higher education.

The event began with introductions by Dean of Admissions Eric Furda, ABC President Sandra Timmons, ABC National Director Chantal Stevens and Senior Program Manager for the Mid-Atlantic Region Keith Wilkerson, which all stressed the importance of diversity in the classroom.

Following these introductions, 2003 School of Arts and Sciences graduate James Peterson began his keynote address, where he pointed out the irony of witnessing the simultaneous unprecedented excellence of racial minorities and the fact that there still exists a significant gap of education, income and living standards between these races — primarily blacks and Latinos — and their white counterparts. To truly address this issue, he argued that one must start at the very beginning: with education.

Peterson began by praising his time in the ABC program, saying that he received “the best education that couldn’t be bought with money” because of it. After being singled out by his middle school principal to apply to ABC, he “went down with a couple homies, break dancing and all, got interviewed … and apparently impressed enough people at that moment to be accepted.”

Peterson went on to Duke University for his undergraduate studies. There, he experienced one of the more “sobering” events that would lead him down the road to academia.

During a rally for Duke to implement its diversity initiatives, it became clear to Peterson that even among these bright young minds, there were few, if any, who had intentions of entering the fields of academia or education, due to family or community expectations to enter professional fields.

This led to his decision to enroll at Penn as a graduate student to pursue a doctorate in English and become a “public intellectual” in his own right, all while maintaining his love for hip-hop. Currently, as director of Africana Studies and associate professor of English at Lehigh University, he says that he is the change for which he advocates.

Many who attended the event expressed their opinion during a Question and Answer session after the speech that having diversity in the faculty as well as in the student body would facilitate matching talented students with mentors to inspire them, exemplifying Peterson’s idea that “we’re all smarter in a diverse environment.”

Despite the success stories of students who have gone through the ABC program, attendees noted that racial disadvantage is still an important issue facing America.

As an ABC alumna currently working at Haverford Admissions, Anika Forrest explained that the ABC program is “empowering and an extra support system” when it comes to providing bright young minds opportunities.

Corbyn Yhap, another ABC alumnus who is currently attending Johns Hopkins University, echoed similar sentiments, expressing “appreciation for a lot of the things they did for me and my family.”

“My brother is going to follow in my footsteps and be at the Peddie School through the ABC program,” Yhap said.

“Hopefully we won’t be needed in the next 50 years, but in the event we are, we will definitely be there for our scholars,” Timmons said.

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