FFRF, with the financial backing of the individual donors, has collaborated with the Secular Student Alliance to select, announce and distribute these student awards. (As per SSA policy to help protect the students’ identities, only the students’ first names are used.)
Kourtney wants to pursue a Ph.D. for a career as a college professor to advocate for the ideas and experiences of all Black people and address how systemic racism and sexism are harmful to marginalized communities. She says, “my dedication to secularism and the social promotion of Black and Brown people influences me to learn more profoundly about myself. Being a Black woman in America is inherently political.”
Kourtney’s secular activism rests upon the practice of keeping morality and political activism separate from religious influence. To advocate against the policies of far-right Christian politics, Kourtney is involved with Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity (URGE) chapter, advocating for free and safe abortions and advocating for trans and LGBTQ civil rights. As Pad Project coordinator within the URGE chapter, she counteracts menstrual cycle miseducation through educational workshops. In volunteering at Planned Parenthood WestEnd, she will engage in Black birthing advocacy and Black bodily autonomy. Through her UNCF/Mellon Mays Fellowship, she will research how Spelman College’s Black, queer, femme women use sex as a form of radical resistance to counteract respectable femininity.
FFRF thanks the estate of Cliff Richards for this scholarship for HBCU students.
