Jumoke McDuffie-Thurmond Awarded Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship

2017 May 10

Jumoke McDuffie-Thurmond was one of six students awarded a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship this spring. The fellowship is the centerpiece of the Andrew Mellon Foundation's initiatives to increase the presence of traditionally underrepresented groups in the faculty ranks of institutions of higher learning in the U.S.

Fellows participate in the program during the last two years of undergraduate study and receive a monthly stipend to offset work study requirements, modest research funds, and additional summer research funding as part of the fellowship. Upon successful completion of graduate study, Mellon Mays Fellows also receive up to $10,000 to assist in repayment of student loans.

McDuffie-Thurmond‘s research is inspired by conversations he had with his mother and it is informed by personal family history used as source material for answering the following questions. What does it mean to exist in a space and a country that is defined by a legacy it refuses to earnestly acknowledge? How do I navigate the legacies of enslavement and violence that are rooted in the soil of my environment? Through the analysis of both his European ancestors and their participation in the slave trade, the forced labor of his African ancestors, he will discover the impact that the two have on his life today. “What does it mean to exist in a space and a country that is defined by a legacy it refuses to earnestly acknowledge,” he asked. “How do I navigate the legacies of enslavement and violence that are rooted in the soil of my environment? To what extent am I defined by that violence?” He’s majoring in African American studies.