UNCF and the Michael Jackson Scholarship – with Kenya Gray

Paul:

Hi, guys. Welcome to the final episode of season one of my podcast, humanitarian and the Real Michael Jackson. I'd love to bring you another season and I still have a lot of people I want to speak with to tell their stories of how Michael Jackson helped them in their time of need or contributed to their recovery from illnesses or people that were just first-hand witness to his many humanitarian acts. But to bring you these stories, I really need you to subscribe to the podcast, subscribe on Apple podcasts, on Spotify to my YouTube channel and share the stories. There's so many great stories of Michael Jackson's humanitarian endeavors out there, and they're not something that the mainstream media like to talk about. So please share the stories and support the show and hopefully I'll see you in season two of the Humanitarian MJ podcast. Now, I have two very special guests today. Michael Jackson donated many times to the United Negro College Fund and to this day is one of their highest contributors.

Kenya Gray was a recipient of the UNCF Michael Jackson Scholarship in the 90’s and thanks to the fund, went on to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mass Communication with highest honors in 1999. And in a full circle moment, she's gone on to become the Director of Scholarships for the UNCF and now manages two of the three scholarships that she received, the Michael Jackson Scholarship and also the Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation Scholarship. So Kenya joins me today alongside UNCF's communication manager Roy Betts.

Roy:

Hey, Paul.

Paul:

Hey, Roy. How are you?

Roy:

Great, great. Hey, I'm glad we're able to get this going.

Paul:

It's nice to connect to you. Hi, Kenya. How are you guys?

Roy:

Hey, man, it's beautiful weather here in the Maryland area for sure today. Kenya, how are you doing?

Kenya:

I'm doing okay. Happy. It's Friday. Got plans to see the Wiz tomorrow. Going to see it at the National Theater. It's the pre tour before the Broadway debut in March or April, something like that. Either way, it's here!

Roy:

Yeah. Have fun Kenya. Paul, I'll turn it over to you.

Paul:

Thank you so much. First of all, I just wanted to say thank you both for joining me. I know you're very busy. You guys are professionals. You do an amazing job with the work that you do. So thank you for putting aside this time to chat with me. 

A little introduction for you guys about myself. In 2018, I published a book called humanitarian the real Michael Jackson, which is a book that pretty much documents all the good things that Michael Jackson did. It details all the hospitals and orphanages that he visited, all the charities he supported, and all the people he helped. It's quite a thick book and it goes into a lot of detail, but it's not something that's widely known about and something that the mainstream media don’t really talk about. And obviously, the UNCF comes up in the book quite often. Michael donated to the UNCF quite a few times, and I believe through my research, to this day, he's one of the UNCF's largest contributors. First of all, since 1944, the UNCF has raised more than $4.5 billion to help more than 400,000 students receive college degrees.

Roy:

Well, that's been updated now. It's 6 billion now. And more than 500,000 and counting students today. We’re approaching our 80th anniversary next year, the actual birth date is April 25.

Paul:

That's amazing.

Roy:

But we'll be celebrating year long starting in January and this podcast to December.

Paul:

Will go live in a couple of months. So the stats will probably even be more by then. But regardless, the UNCF plays a critical role in enabling more than that amount of students every year to attend college and to get an education. Kenya, I've read a little bit about your story and I wanted to know, first of all if you could introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us a little bit about your upbringing and where you were raised.

Kenya:

Well, good afternoon, good evening, whatever you are in the land of Zamundas. I am Kenya Samuels Gray. And it's important to say that because I am a 40 something year old woman from Prince George's County, Maryland. So I am right outside of Washington, DC. Where I was born, where my parents were born and raised. And I grew up in PG County, Maryland, which is a predominantly African American county, one of the richest black counties in the United States. And so that plays an important role in my values and who I am. I'm the oldest of three children.

I'm the only girl, which is a very important thing to note that I am my daddy's baby girl and I'm his oldest child. And growing up, the importance of education was always put into my life. My parents did not go to college. My dad joined the military before he even graduated from high school. So he knew that in order to better himself, he needed to leave the environment that he was in. And the only way out that he saw was joining the military. He had one college scholarship, but didn't understand how he was going to pay for the rest of it. So it didn't make sense.

There was nobody to tell him what to do, how to do his student loans, whatever all of that meant. Nobody was there to tell him how to do that. So he believed that his way out was joining the military. So he joined the military before his high school graduation and in September of that year married my mother. So my parents have been together since they were 1415 years old, and this past year celebrated 51 years of marriage. And I came along five years after they got married. One of my earliest memories is music. One of my very earliest memories.

My dad had a real deel. He had those 8ft tall speakers with like, the styrofoam in front of them. And one of my earliest memories is eating that Styrofoam. So I knew chewing through that styrofoam, so I knew that as a 40 something year old woman now that music has played such an integral part of my life. My parents were relatively young when they had me. They were in their early 20s, so it was all music, all the time. My middle name comes from Stevie Wonder's daughter, Aisha. Life is aisha the meaning of her name.

So that is where my middle name comes from. My dad loved Earth, Wind and Fire. He loved Shaka Khan. He loved Phyllis Hyman. My mama. Loved Shaka Khan. Loved Anita Baker. So music was always a part of my life.

And when I was about six, we sat down as a family and sat in front of a TV because they said, there's a music video coming on that you should be impressed with. That video came on. It was thriller. I ran for the hills. I ran for the hills. I don't remember the first time I watched that video in its entirety because I was scared. But I knew then that the legacy of Michael Jackson was something much bigger than myself. We sat and we watched Motown 25.

I knew that the legacy of Michael Jackson would be something that was important in my life. Just knowing, just in our lives, thriller and all things Jackson would come into my life. And when it was time for me to go to college, I knew that I wanted to go to an historically black college. I was a fan of A Different World. I was a fan of The Cosby Show, and I was just a fan of being in spaces where people look like me. I grew up in a place where people look like me. I knew that going to an HBCU would know enrich my life. And so I decided on Bennett College, which is one of two historically black colleges for women in Greensboro, North Carolina.

It is where the girl you are meets the woman you'll become. And because I was the first person in my family to go to college, we didn't know anything about how to pay for college. My dad just said, you're going to college. I had good grades in high school. And all we knew was that if you get good grades in high school, you get a scholarship to college. That's all you know, that's what you're socialized to do. Work hard, somebody will pay you to go to college. Well, Bennett didn't pay me to go to college, but I was going to.

So I had to figure out what I needed to do to get in college and go through college. And so I was the person they told my dad, hey, loans exist. And I basically signed a 360 deal. I signed my life and took out those student loans. But I worked hard, really hard while I was in school and been at such a small intimate place where everybody knows you, everybody knows your capabilities, everybody knows how hard you work. And it just so happened that the people in the financial aid office knew that I had an unpaid balance or I had loans on my account, or I was just deserving whatever was they saw in me that I didn't see in myself. They stuck this application in my mailbox. They stuck a scholarship application in my mailbox.

It was for a UNCs scholarship for the Michael Jackson Scholarship. But I got that Michael Jackson scholarship. I think it was for like 1000 or $2,000. And back then that was a lot of money towards your education. And I got it again. And I got it again. And one year I even got the Janet Jackson Scholarship because it was for students who were majoring in communications. Now, I'm talking a lot now, but it's for a good reason because when I was in high school, I said I wanted to be Oprah.

When I high school, I said I wanted to be Oprah. I majored in mass communications at Bennett. And my professor said, Kenya, there is only one Oprah. Please be your best Kenyan. And I took that to heart and I didn't pivot, but I knew know, going broadcast TV route really wasn't what I wanted to do. It was just what and so, you know, after I graduated from Undergrad, I came back to DC to do graduate school at American University. And I got a degree in public relations, worked in public relations, but felt a calling to work with people who looked like me in situations and circumstances that might have been similar to my own. So I became a teacher.

I became a high school teacher in Washington DC. Where I met my husband, who was also a teacher. And we were in Washington DC. I was teaching English and journalism. And by happenstance, the kids in the class didn't know anything about HBCUs. They didn't know anything about, you know, barely knew the names of the schools they wanted to attend. And this particular high school that I worked at was having its first graduating class. It was a startup charter school having its first graduating class.

So the students in those classes would just come to my office. I talked so much about college. I talked so much about my experience, probably because I was only two or three years out. And so it was still fresh in my head 20 years ago now they would come to my classroom and I would help them fill out college applications and I would help them explain the FAFSA. And if they were comfortable, I would talk to their parents, like, do your FAFSA. This is what it means. It's not scary. And that transition from teaching English became becoming the college counselor at this particular high school because it was an unheard of thing.

We all probably just had regular guidance counselors when I was with those. Now almost 40 year old young adults, they're in their late 30s now. How it felt to be somebody who listened to them, who advised them about fit and college and making a decision not based on a d one powerhouse institution, but making a decision on what your career path wanted to be, what educational environment looked like for you, how that fit. And so it kind of spiraled from there. And then the opportunity to take my talents and come full circle to a place like UNCF just kind of fell in my lap and it was literally full. Was, didn't you get that scholarship when you were in college? Isn't Bennett a UNCF member institution they talked about on the Lou Rawls? How awesome is this? How amazing is this opportunity that just fell in your lap that you can go and work at a place, know, helped you get to the place where you are. And so starting to work at UNCF, one of the things they give you is a portfolio of scholarships. I went into Scholarships and Programs department and one of the things they give you is the portfolio of scholarships that you're going to be managing.

And the former director at that time was like, here's this endowment that you'll be administering. X amount of dollars. Here's the information on it. And lo and behold, one of those scholarships that I was administering was the Michael Jackson Scholarship. And so for me, it was like, do I cry? Do I get up and run around this do in this moment, but just say, thank you, God. Because if not for this scholarship that I'm holding in my hand now, I would not be able to sit right here at this office, in this desk, to be able to pay it forward and select other students who are communications majors who are humanitarian humanities majors who are arts and sciences, give them the same kind of unspoken support that this particular opportunity gave to me. And so I've been at UNCF of twelve years now. So that was one of the first scholarships that I started managing. 

All the way up until this year, I managed that scholarship where I got a promotion and moved into a different department. But it has been one that I have held near and dear to my heart. The person who is going to manage it next. I've explained all of this to her as well. It is tried and true that that scholarship has been around many years and it is a grandfather, a stalwart in scholarships and programs and it is just heaven sent for me, for the hundreds of students at this point that have benefited directly from it. And we can't speak enough about just the philanthropy and the generosity. Know Mr. Jackson and his family and just know UNCF poured into him and he poured right back into us.

So that was a lot of talking, but I hope I did you some justice and know a lot of questions, but I will turn it back over to you.

Paul:

Wow, thank you so much. That's an amazing story. You did really well. Thank you. I do have a list of questions, but you pretty much ticked a lot of boxes in that. And that's why I wanted to talk to you because it's just how it's gone full circle is just amazing. And everything happens for a reason, right? There's a higher power at work there, I believe. I wanted to go back to when you got your scholarship, was there an eligibility criteria that you can remember? You were told you had to work hard to get that scholarship.

Kenya:

Yes. So what I remember, because it was a long time ago now, I think at least a 3.0 GPA, you needed to be a communications major, journalism or something in that realm, and you needed to have some kind of unmet need. So if there's a balance on your account, if you had some other need for scholarship money and you needed to be at one of UNCF's member institutions. So I checked off all those boxes, but pretty much the criteria hasn't changed.

Paul:

Yeah. And so as a student, does worrying about that financial aspect of your education, is that something do you think affects your studies or your mental health?

Kenya:

It does, because what I remember in retrospect, looking back, is that my dad tried to take out the loan for me to go to school and he was denied. But my parents had just moved that now, you know, many years later I realized that you can't buy a house and take out a student loan in the same year. It doesn't work that way. But at the time, it was like I was denied. What are we going to do? How are we going to pay for my education? Because I didn't get any money from Bennett, but I knew that's where I was supposed to be. And so it did play a role. The weight of being the first person in my family to go to in my family. So my grandparents, all of them, just the first person to go to college, weighed on me heavily that I knew that I had to exceed expectations.

And so I put a lot of stress on myself my freshman year to keep and maintain a 4.0. I came out of my first year, my first semester with a 4.0. My first 2nd semester probably were like a three nine. It was that kind of academic pressure I put on myself to exceed expectations that probably nobody had of me. But I put on myself. Wasn't defined as anxiety back then, but very much would be anxiety. Today would just be called anxiety.

Paul:

Yeah. And you touched on the fact that you received the Michael Jackson and the Janet Jackson scholarships more than once. And my understanding was the fund that Michael Jackson put in, I think it was 1986 or 1988, it was a $1.5 million fund that perpetually renews earning interest, which makes it possible to continue to help multiple I think it's 34 students per year, which would be long.

Kenya:

It varies, depends on the interest.

Paul:

Okay. Yeah. So that is a scholarship that will continue to be available to kids.

Kenya:

Yes. Like you said, because the interest is drawn on it. There's a finite amount based upon the interest earnings, and then we launch an application and based upon the amount of money that the interest bears for us, we do an application process where we select students. So sometimes, depending on how the markets are going, there's a robust amount of money. And some years it might be lean, but there's guaranteed to be at least one Michael Jackson recipient because that amount of interest earned is not going to be zero, but up to 40 kids some year, maybe down to 20. Sometimes it just depends because it's not a set dollar amount of money that the interest will draw down from us.

Paul:

Yeah. Do the scholarships change or evolve or are they basically the same as when they were created?

Kenya:

The dollar amount has pretty much been $4,000. And I'm pretty sure that probably changed in the 2000s because I don't remember receiving $4,000. So it might have changed, but I know the dollar amount now is $4,000.

Paul:

A student, and that $4,000 or that amount that the student gets. What can they put that towards? Is that just for loans?

Kenya:

So it's for cost of attendance. So the way a student they're selected for the scholarship and then their institution would provide us with their scholarship budget. So they tuition, fees, room, board, health insurance, transportation, books and supplies, they would provide all that to us. They would also provide us with any institutional aid or outside scholarships that they've received. And then the bottom line is their unmet need. So that gray area would be their unmet need. And we don't include loans in that number. And so if a student has a gap of at least $4,000, we would apply $4,000 and the money is wired directly to the institution with notice that says, hey, please apply this to the student's account for the academic year.

And then the institution would kind of make the adjustment as to where it fits best. If it's loan repayment, then it's loan repayment. If they still have a balance, it's going to pay down the balance, and then we make sure that both semesters are taken care of. And so we half in one semester, half in the other semester.

Paul:

That's amazing. That must be really empowering for you to be able to give that back to so many students. Do you have any standout stories about students you've helped and how it's impacted you?

Kenya:

I do, and it goes back to my own alma mater, been at college, and so working at a place that also helps my own undergraduate institution is empowering and one of my early years. Application is open. I'm reading applications, and there's an application from a young lady who attends Bennett. And in her essay, she talked about being in the choir. She talked about being a music major or music minor. She talked about wanting to be a teacher. And she talked about the fact that she didn't know where she was going to college until maybe two weeks before college started and how she was going to pay for it and how her life being she was also from Washington, DC. How her life would not be what it is now if not for the opportunity to leave her environment and go to college.

And I was like, this sounds real sounds I don't know this young lady from Adam, but this sounds real familiar. So I'm looking and I said, this young lady is at Bennett, so I'm going to find, you know, I select her for the scholarship, I award her, the money goes on her account, and I'm active in my alumni association here in DC. So I make my way and I find this young lady and I say, sierra, I just want you to know when I read your story, it reminded me a lot of myself. I saw myself in this essay and I wanted you to know that you have a big sister in me as your Bennett sister. You have a big sister in me as somebody who's received UNCF scholarships. As somebody who now administers UNCF scholarships. She was in college in 2013, 2014. She has since graduated from college.

She is a minister of the Gospel now. She still sings. I saw her maybe a month ago and she told that same story about, I didn't know what I was going to do, I didn't know how I was going to do it. And miraculously, Miss Kenya came from the heavens and helped me just get to and through college. She said, I graduated from college with no debt. And she is like the perfect example of somebody who took a chance on just casting her net far and wide and applying for multiple scholarships and graduating from college with no loan debt because she was determined that that wasn't going to be her fate. And it started with her being a Michael Jackson scholarship recipient the same way I was.

Paul:

Wow. It's amazing. It's obviously an amazing program. You guys do an amazing job. I'm so admirable of what you do. So well done to both of you and to everybody in the team. I'm sure it's a team effort. You've spoken so well.

I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Is there anything you wanted to add that you wanted to speak about.

Kenya:

There's so much, but not enough hours in the day. I would just implore your listeners to look into UNCF, look into historically Black colleges. Support HBCUs, support institutions that you may not have heard of because they're doing some amazing, you know, small but mighty institutions like my own alma mater. Small but mighty institutions doing amazing work with the men and women who matriculate through their campuses. Take some time, find an HBCU, find a you know, if you're in a place where UNCF office is and participate in their activities, there are fundraising efforts all the time all over the place. There's mask balls and walks and hat and glove tees and masquerade balls and just opportunity to volunteer. Because all of that time and those resources still help us to be able to pour into another student. If that's not your thing, and your checkbook is the way that you talk, we will receive a check at UNCF.

We will receive a check at your favorite HBCU because money is always needed to do bigger and better things with these students. If in your corporation, you're like, I might want to partner with UNCF to find scholars or to find future employees, talk to UNCF because there's a place for you with that. There's a way to continue to support black students, students of color, get to and through college. And I just want to implore your listeners that there's no one way to skin that cat. But the opportunity for you to make a change and make a difference is always out there and the door never closes. We may be off at 05:00, but the work never stops. I will stop there and I will let Roy close.

Roy:

Well, I could not say how wonderful you have been. I know it's been a while since we have been able to make this happen. And Paul, thank you for your patience and your focus on this particular aspect of our work. Kenya is an outstanding spokesperson, as you can see. I'm going to have an offline conversation with Kenya about that because she knows I'm in branding, marketing and communications. And with her background in communications, I just don't see how you never wound up in our department.

Kenya:

Don't tell people, we'll talk. Yes.

Paul:

If you get a pay rise, Kenya, remember, I hooked up this chat.

Kenya:

Hahaha, I got you. I got you!

Roy:

Kenya, thank you.

Paul:

Thank you both so much for your time. As I said, it's very much appreciated. I know it's taken a lot of I've nagged you and nagged you, but I'm so glad we got to connect and I got to hear your story. Undoubtedly, the UNCF is a big part of Michael Jackson's humanitarian history. And likewise, I suppose, Michael Jackson is a big part of the UNCF's history. So for people to hear a bit more about both of them is a good thing. And I think it's something that should be spoken about and people should learn about when people are doing such a great job, like you guys and the UNCF people need to hear about it and I'm happy to talk about it.

Roy:

Thank you both.

Kenya:

Looking forward to just reading the book and listening to your podcast. So thank you.

Paul:

Thank you. Thank you both. Enjoy the rest of your day.