The Freedom From Religion Foundation is proud to announce the 10 winners of the 2016 Michael Hakeem Memorial College Essay Contest for Students of Color.
Essayists were asked to write a personal persuasive essay about why they are a nonbeliever and their experiences as young nonbelievers of color.
Winners are listed below and include the award amount and the college or university they are attending. FFRF has paid out a total of $8,750 in award money for this contest.
First place
Nadia Duncan, SUNY Purchase College ($3,000)
Second place
Anuj Krishnamurthy, Brown University ($2,000)
Third place
Bahram Sherwani, San Francisco State University ($1,000)
Fourth place
Jonathan Azpeitia, Pomona College ($750)
Fifth place (tie)
Kamerin Winston, Spelman College ($500)
Fifth place (tie)
Tyneshia Griffin, Virginia Tech University ($500)
Sixth place
Benjamin Duru, California University–Long Beach ($400)
Honorable mentions ($200 each)
Ana Almeida-Rojo, Oglethorpe University
Taylor Johnson, SUNY at Purchase
Alexandra Lewis, East Carolina University
FFRF has offered essay competitions to college students since 1979.
“It’s a myth that most African-Americans, Latinos or Hispanic-Americans are uniformly religious,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “FFRF wants to showcase diversity and reward minorities in the freethought movement who are especially courageous in ‘coming out of the closet.’ ”
The college contest is named for the late Michael Hakeem, a sociology professor who was an FFRF officer and active atheist known by generations of University of Wisconsin-Madison students for fine-tuning their reasoning abilities.
