DHS grad completes her Harvard journey
Kyra March of Darlington as she graduates from Harvard. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Four years ago, Kyra March gave her valedictorian speech at Darlington High School’s graduation and encouraged her class with these words: “We are powerful. We can change the world around us for the better.”
On May 26, March graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor’s in African-American Studies and Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality (WGS) with a language citation in Gullah.
She graduated Magna Cum Laude, got inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and is the first in Harvard’s history to complete a language citation in Gullah.
March received the Kathryn Ann Huggins Prize for the most outstanding thesis relating to African-American life, history or culture; the Rev. Peter J. Gomes prize in religion and ethnicity for social responsibility through public service and potential for distinguished contributions to the public good; the Benjamin Teel Memorial Prize, awarded to an Adams House senior who has served the House with the same generous, gentle and happy spirit as Benjamin Teel; and the Dumbarton Oaks Humanities Fellowship in Washington.
Within her four years at Harvard, March has been a WGS Peer Adviser, a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, served as Sisterhood Chair, President, and Senior Representative for the Association of Black Harvard Women, and has danced with Omo Naija x The Wahala Boys and the Eleganza Show.
She established a scholarship for seniors who attend schools within Darlington County called the “Make Your Mark” Scholarship and has given two $500 scholarships to recipients for the past four years. The online prompt questions seniors about how they will make their mark on their community once they graduate or in the near future and why they believe that they should go back and aid their community once they leave.
After graduating, March will head to New York for a summer internship at the Apollo Theater and then to Washington to begin a nine-month fellowship at the Dumbarton Oaks Museum where she will be working in collaboration between the museum and the National Gallery of Art.
