Former First Lady Michelle Obama has been busy lately promoting her memoir, The Light We Carry, but the generous author took time out to celebrate a new kid on the block today, shouting out Texas teen Madison Corzine. Corzine has been announced as the inaugural winner of The Michelle Obama Award for Memoir.
The award, created by publishing giant Penguin Random House, honors “one high school senior who attends public school with a college scholarship of $10,000 for their original literary composition in English in the category of memoir/personal essay.”
I’m excited to share that Madison Corzine is the first-ever recipient of the Michelle Obama Award for Memoir!
— Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) June 6, 2023
Madison is a recent graduate from Timber Creek High School in Fort Worth, Texas. In the fall, she will be attending @SpelmanCollege, where she plans to study English and… pic.twitter.com/9sPXWkl3QG
Obama shares that “Madison is a recent graduate from Timber Creek High School in Fort Worth, Texas,” and reveals that Corzine “will be attending Spellman College where she plans to study English and Political Science in hopes of becoming a civil rights attorney.”
Corzine is also a recipient of a 2022 NSHSS (National Society of High School Scholars) Nobel Academic Excellence Scholarship.
And then there is Corzine’s unique role as a beauty pageant winner. Corzine was named national Miss Juneteenth 2022, a platform she says she uses to “advocate for equity in advanced academics by ending period poverty for brown and black girls.”
Below is a radio interview featuring Corzine and Opal Lee, the 94-year-old Juneteenth promoter, like Corzine from Fort Worth, who in 2016 at the age of 89 walked from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., to raise awareness of Juneteenth.
