The Ku Klux Klan may have said that they’re proud of the painfully growing Black on Black violence in America, but it’s this kind of extraordinary accomplishments among young black men that get them going crazy. Meet Malcolm Jefferson, a 15-year-old who is currently a sophomore at Hillhouse High School in New Haven CT who will be attending college next fall.

“I think I saw enough of high school, I guess, I don’t know.  I liked it, it was fun for a while, but I want to see if I can do this new challenge,”Jefferson said.

After two years, Malcolm will be eligible for an associate’s degree. After four years, he could earn his bachelor’s degree, all without ever graduating from high school.

“I think I’m going to try to major in pre-med,” he said.

Biology might be his dual major.  It will be a tough curriculum, but one that Malcolm’s father said his son can handle.

Inspiring: Dawn Loggins, A student who was once homeless and abandoned by her parents is now headed to Harvard University on a full scholarship.

[Excerpt from HuffPost] When facing homelessness, bullying, and being abandoned by family, many people might be tempted to give up hope. But for 18-year-old Dawn Loggins, who was just accepted into Harvard University, this was not the case.

“When I was younger, I looked around at my family and I saw the neglect, the drug abuse, the bad choices and I saw my family living from paycheck to paycheck, and I just made a decision that I was not going to end up like my parents,” Loggins told WBTV.

“When I lived with my grandma there was trash all over the house,” Loggins told WBTV. “She never really explained to me like that it was important to shower — it was important to take care of yourself, so I would go months at a time without showering. I would wear the same dress to school for months at a time.”

“If there is anybody at all who has a dream,” Loggins told WBTV, “then they can definitely make it happen. There are no excuses. It depends on you and no one else.”

Source: The Huffington Post

When he was four years old, his father abandoned him along with his brothers, and his mother in a small Xhosa township in South Africa’s Western Cape. All he left behind was one Pavarotti CD.  Eleven years later, Mteto Maphoyi only got to see his father once more before his passing. As a child, Mteto played his Pavarotti CD one phrase at a time, teaching him self the lyrics to the song “Santa Lucia” and “O Sole Mio” In a town where HIV/AIDS have claimed hundreds of lives and  40% Unemployment is the everyday norm. Mteto used his self thought talent to teach his friends the Italian music and help provide for their families before their own lives were taken from the vicious gang life cycle. 


This is his Story

Source: tedxteen.com