Please review the application packet and
encourage appropriate students to apply. The $1,000 unrestricted award
will be based on a 500 word essay and financial need. Notification of the
award will be made in early July following the deadline.
Questions from faculty about the scholarship may be addressed to Glennetta
Blair at msblair@zoomtown.com.
Deadline
for Applications: TBD
How to Apply (note this requires that
Adobe Reader
be
installed).
Click
here to download:
Background
William Henry
Gray Carter, a grandson and namesake of Arkansas first elected African-American
state legislator during post-Civil War Reconstruction, was a Unitarian minister, community
spokesperson and leader in Cincinnati. In addition to his ministry, he ran a second-hand
clothing store, an alcohol-free pool hall (also used as the site for free holiday meals
for any members of the community), sold real estate and was a Pinkerton detective. Rev.
Carter ran for City Council in the late 1920s and led a march on City Hall in the
early 1930s to demand a food program for his hungry neighbors.
Rev.
Carter, one of this nations earliest African-American Unitarian ministers, was not
accepted into the established Unitarian community in Cincinnati at the time of his
ministry. He was virtually ignored and received no help from the local Unitarian churches
or the American Unitarian Association as he strove to bring liberal religious thought to
Cincinnatis poorest neighborhood.
In
recognition of this neglect and oversight, First Unitarian Church held a Reconciliation
Service with nearly 100 descendants of the Rev. and Mrs. Carter in January 2001. At that
time, First Unitarian Church established the Carter Memorial Fund to provide limited,
one-time emergency financial support to families with young children, or to support
educational opportunities not otherwise available for minority students.
Since
2001, the fund has provided emergency rental or utility assistance to several families,
supported three college student counselor/internships for the West Cincinnati Presbyterian
Church summer youth program, purchased African-American biographies for the Whittier
School Library, subsidized two scholarship students to take the Historic Black Colleges
spring tour and supported a Hughes High School class to visit the Memphis Civil Rights
Museum. This fund is replenished each January with a dedicated offering at the church. The
Carter Fund continues to accept applications for individual emergency assistance and
projects from teachers, social workers and church members.
The new scholarship is an extension of this effort.