By Taki S. Raton
Chelesa Fearce
In between shelters, home would often be her mother’s car, and there were times of extreme hunger. Evening studies in the dark when a homeless shelter became available was under cellphone light – as long as the battery held up.
“I just told myself to keep working, because the future will not be like this anymore.”
She is young, gifted and Black. Chelesa Fearce, because of her awesome resilience to “keep working” and confidence in her future, graduated valedictorian of her senior class at Charles Drew High School in Riverdale, Georgia on May 23, 2013. She will enter Spelman College this fall as a junior.
“I just did what I had to do,” says the 17-year-old in Yehsa Callahan’s May 22 Clutch posting. According to WBSTV.com, Chelesa was homeless for most of her high school career, but that did not stop her from graduating at the very top of her high school class. She achieved a final grade point average of 4.466.
For the last two years of high school, this Georgia teenager tested high enough to take all college courses, thereby advancing her two years in college credits. Thus her enrollment in Spelman as a third year student in September.
Kyrstie Yandoli in the May 22, 2013 Huffington Post reveals that Chelesa is not the only one making her family proud during this graduation season. Her sister, Chelsea, is graduating as salutatorian of her class at George Washington Carver High School in Atlanta.
“I’m very proud,” said her mother, Reenita Shephard, in Huffington. “I read to them a lot, took them to the library. Everything around them was a learning experience.”
As cited in the Atlanta Black Star, Shepard and her family of five sometimes had an apartment to live in, but it was only for a short time.
“We ended up back in another shelter because I got laid off from my job maybe about four or five times,” she said.
The family, as reported in Star, regularly moved from apartment to apartment, lived in shelters, hotels, or in the family car – while they still had one.
“My mom,” Chelesa said, “whenever we’re in that situation, she always finds a way out of it. So I would just tell myself, tomorrow it will not be like this.”
Charles Drew High School counselor Razelda Killen says of Chelesa that, “She has overcome obstacles, but in spite of those obstacles she has done an outstanding job academically and socially.”
Her success, despite all challenges that were placed before her, has made her humble. As quoted in Star:
“I’m so happy that I got through all of this and that I finally have gotten to this point. All the studying I’ve done, I was studying science, math, everything. I’m proud to have come this far.” She reveals that one example that she looks up to are the Titans who were very inspirational: “They’re strong, and they need to be strong despite their hardships.” Chelesa while at Spelman wants to study to become an oncologist.
Her advice to her peers: “Don’t give up. Do what you have to do right now so that you can have the future that you want.”
Chelesa Fearce is not the first young teen that this “Young, Gifted & Black” series has featured. Under the headline “Claiming destiny on skid row, gifted scholar finds home at Harvard,” the December 15, 2012 Courier edition shares the plight of Khadijah Williams.
As long as she can remember, Khadijah has been homeless. She has drifted from shelter to motels to armories along with her mother Chantwuan Williams and her little sister Jeanine. She has attended 12 schools in 12 years; lived out of garbage bags among pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers
But every morning, Khadijah upheld her dignity and made sure she didn’t smell or look disheveled. On the streets, she learned how to hunt for their next meal, plot the next bus route and help secure a place for her mother and sister to sleep; a tough and dismal road for a young West Coast are.” homeless Black girl who would end up earning a full scholarship to Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Published accounts reveal, however, that over subsequent years, her mother pulled her out of school eight more times. When shelters closed, money ran out, or her mother did not feel safe, they packed what little they could carry and boarded buses to find housing in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Ventura, San Diego, San Bernardino and Orange County, staying only months at most in one place.
But at every stop, Khadijah pushed herself towards and beyond her perceived limitations in each school’s gifted program. She read newspapers and four to five books a month, studied nutrition charts, “all and anything, to transport her mind away from the chaos and the sour smell.”
On Friday, June 19, 2009, Khadijah graduated fourth in her class. She was accepted to more than 20 universities nationwide to include Brown, Columbia, Amherst and Williams. She chose a full scholarship to Harvard and envisions becoming an education attorney.
Harvard interviewer Julie Hilden who met with Khadijah to review her candidacy for admittance said that “I strongly recommend her.” She shared with the acceptance committee that, “If you don’t take her, you might be missing out on the next Michelle Obama. Don’t make this mistake.”
On June 30, 2012, the Courier in this series highlighted three homeless seniors –Cleveland, Ohio’s David Boone, Eboni Boykin of St. Louis, and Atlanta’s Fred Dukes.
Under the banner, “From homeless to Harvard, Columbia, and Coker College students excel despite the odds,” David’s home at the age of 14 was destroyed by gang members who retaliated because he would not join. They shot up the house leaving bullet holes throughout the residence. The family had to split up because no one had room to take all in. For two years, until his mother found a secure place for the family, David lived with friends, relatives and school employees. Sometimes he even had to sleep in Artha Woods Park off Martin Luther King, Jr. He finally got into a regiment where he would rest and study in a transit station at night that had heat and was open late. He would leave the station at 5 a.m. on his way to school.
With the assistance of his school principal and his wife, they took David in for over a year. He rose to become salutatorian of his graduating class at Cleveland’s specialized MC-2STEM High School. He was accepted into over 20 universities throughout the nation to include Yale, Princeton, Brown, the University of Pennsylvania, and Cornell. He chose Harvard with the intent of majoring in electrical engineering and computer science.
Eboni Boykin spent much of her childhood in St. Louis in and out of homeless shelters. She is quoted as noting that she, “attended more schools than she can recall,” and that city urban schools, “were full of disruptions, failure, and high dropout rates.”
But like David, Khadijah, and Chelesa, she ascended from a challenged impoverished life at Normandy High School where every day she walked through blighted neighborhoods with “streets filled with abandoned homes, litter-strewn lots and shuttered businesses” to make her classes.
“There were times when we lived in cars. I would collect food stamps, but I didn’t have anywhere to put the food,” said her mother, Lekista Flurry.
However, while at Normandy, the then 17-yearold was enrolled in three Advanced Placement classes while carrying a 3.8 G.P.A. She scored 27 on her ACT exam.
During the summer of 2011, Eboni attended a journalism program at Princeton University. It was during this summer that she selected Columbia University in New York where she then planned to major in journalism. Columbia granted her a full scholarship.
Fred Dukes on May 23, 2012 walked across the stage at the capacity filled Atlanta Civic Center to receive his high school diploma from Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta, Georgia. He achieved this life benchmark while being homeless and without any family support.
Having been homeless since the previous December, Fred was still able to score 24 on his ACT and maintained a 3.0 G.P.A. His mother moved to South Carolina for a job, but the then high school senior opted to remain in Atlanta. He lived in a homeless shelter in downtown Atlanta. Fred’s plans were to attend Coker College and major in business.
At this past graduation exercise at Morehouse College, keynote speaker President Barack Obama during his address recognized graduating senior Leland Shelton. When Leland was 4-years-old, social services took him away from his mother and placed him in the care of his grandparents. By age 14, he was in the foster care system.
Three years following, he was able to enroll in Morehouse, and on Sunday, May 19. 2013, Leland graduated Phi Beta Kappa with plans to attend Harvard Law School.
Perhaps the sharing of Fred Dukes may be reflective of the trials, tribulations and obstacles faced by Chelesa, Khadijah, David, Eboni and Leland:
“I am very proud I stuck with it and didn’t give up,” says Fred. “Do not let your situation make you who you are. It is the decisions that you make, that make you the person that you are.”