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When Grandma Saw Zaila

When Grandma Saw Zaila Avant-Garde

"I'm yet to hear a story that's not centuries old of a black achiever from you grandma. Is it because black excellence ceased with the previous century or you only know your cronies in your age bracket?" Ada remarked. " This child!!", grandma rolled her eyes and continued, as a matter of fact I'll tell you about a youngster like you, a little miss achiever, grand daughter Zaila Avant-garde.A fifteen year old girl born yesterday you know on the 9th of February 2007. " I think i saw her on TV last year, hailing from New Orleans Louisiana, she won the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee on July 8th", Ada added. Well done Ada, I see you are finally putting the cable to good use. That's the kind of information you should be watching. Anyway, she was on an Akeelah and the bee roll. She didn't just win the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee, she became the second black winner after Jamaica's Jody-Anne Maxwell and more importantly the first African American to win in almost 100 years of the competition with murraya- a type of tree being her winning word. And she had only been doing spelling competitions for merely two years. And that's not the end of it, the girl's also a basketball player and juggler. She holds three basketball records in the Guinness book of world records: the most bounce juggles in one minute with four basketballs, the most basketball bounces in 30 seconds with four basketballs, and ties of the record for most basketballs dribbled at once. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that she has not only been celebrated by Barrack Obama, Lebron James and Bill Murray, honored with a parade in her hometown, Harvey, LA in addition to being named sports kid of the year 2021 by Sports Illustrated kids. There's a trailblazer for you Ada. Let the one with ears hear. "huh so that's your quote for this story grandma?" Ada inquired. "Hmm if you don't draw any lesson from this story Ada, no quote will save you." Grandma retorted.

  • Tags:  60 Unknown Black Achievers  Zaila Avant-Garde

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