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2018 WINNER
Topic
Change the Name of Lee Park and Remove the Statue
Charlottesville High School

Zyahna Bryant is a junior at Charlottesville High School. Her winning entry, “Change the Name of Lee Park and Remove the Statue,” a petition to Charlottesville city council, helped spark the town’s movement to remove Confederate statues.

Zyahna is a student activist and community organizer who works on issues of racial justice in Charlottesville, VA. Her primary focus is on the achievement gap and equal access for students of color. She founded the Black Student Union at her high school and is a member of the Charlottesville Youth Council. At age 12, she organized her first demonstration, a rally for justice for Trayvon Martin and other unarmed black lives lost to police violence. Zyahna has been featured on CNN and in The New York Times, National Geographic, The New Yorker Magazine, and Vice News. She was recently awarded the 2018 Washington, D.C. Princeton Prize in Race Relations.