10 mid-Michigan students are heading to college with scholarships awarded through a local reparations fund.
The Justice League of Greater Lansing aims to address the racial wealth gap by collecting and redistributing money to community members whose lives have been impacted by the legacy of slavery.
Olivia Burns is one of those scholarship recipients.
WKAR’s Sophia Saliby spoke with the East Lansing High School graduate about the honor and her plans to attend Michigan State University this fall.
Interview Highlights
On the essay she wrote about how the racial wealth gap had impacted her family
My parents and I have always talked about differences in the world. That was always a big thing they wanted to point out because as being a transracial adoptee, they wanted to make sure that I understood the hardships of my own community, even if I didn’t see it firsthand within my family…
Since I am lucky enough to be in contact with my biological family, I was able to call them, get some more perspective on their lives, talk to them about their upbringing, my family years ago, learn more about my own personal life story, and then compare it to what I know now about my adoptive family.
On the significance of the scholarship program
To me, this scholarship means that we’re taking steps forward and educating people about the differences between the Black community and the white community, financially. Not a lot of people, even my own friend group, didn’t understand really what was going on until I explained more in depth about the scholarship and what it really meant.
On what she plans to study at MSU
My goal is to go into forensic psychology. I really wanted a chance to become an advocate, mostly for children within the legal field, and give them a chance to have treatment unbiasedly, and even other people that are often looked down upon because of where they’re at in life. I wanted to be a person that they could come to for treatment, whether it’s legally obligated treatment, whether it’s a support group that I’m leading, I just wanted to be a person that everyone could talk to and feel like they were being looked at as an individual person
Interview Transcript
Sophia Saliby: 10 mid-Michigan students are heading to college with scholarships awarded through a local reparations fund.
The Justice League of Greater Lansing aims to address the racial wealth gap by collecting and redistributing money to community members whose lives have been impacted by the legacy of slavery.
Olivia Burns is one of those scholarship recipients.
She’s an East Lansing High School graduate who is attending Michigan State University this fall. She joins me now. Thank you for being here.
Olivia Burns: Thank you for having me.
Saliby: How did you find out about the Justice League as well as this scholarship program?
Burns: Well, I first heard about the Justice League when I was an intern for [state Sen. Sarah] Anthony in the summer of 2023. Working for her introduced me to a lot of different organizations in the Lansing area that I hadn’t really heard about.
But I didn’t know about their actual scholarship program until my high school. Actually, me and all my friends, we were sitting in class, and we got called down to the office, and they were like, “Hey, we have this great scholarship opportunity. You need to apply right now.”
And so, we were all sitting in this conference room and really thinking about our own personal life stories and what we could write and trying to figure out how to condense your whole life into 500 words. That was really something.
Saliby: Yeah, you were asked to write about how the racial wealth gap had affected you and your family. Could you share your reflections from writing that essay?
Burns: I mean, my parents and I have always talked about differences in the world. That was always a big thing they wanted to point out because as being a transracial adoptee, they wanted to make sure that I understood the hardships of my own community, even if I didn’t see it firsthand within my family.
And so writing this essay, since I am lucky enough to be in contact with my biological family, I was able to call them, get some more perspective on their lives, talk to them about their upbringing, my family years ago, learn more about my own personal life story, and then compare it to what I know now about my adoptive family.
Saliby: What does it mean to receive this scholarship from the Justice League?
Burns: To me, this scholarship means that we’re taking steps forward and educating people about the differences between the Black community and the white community, financially. Not a lot of people, even my own friend group, didn’t understand really what was going on until I explained more in depth about the scholarship and what it really meant.
And even though I feel so grateful to have it for myself and for my family and to be able to put this money towards my education and take the burden off my parents, it also made me feel like I was letting the community know we have this going on. This is a really important cause, like nobody was really thinking about it. But hey, let’s bring attention to this program. This is the first scholarship. It gave people an outlet to be educated in a very exciting way.
Saliby: Going forward, what do reparations mean to you being kind of a recipient of a reparations program?
Burns: To me, I would say that it means that people recognizing the hardships they put towards my community, and not that I think that each person that you know is related to, ancestrally to what caused the issue.
I think it’s a chance for them to be educated and try to give back to a community that they might have not realized was struggling in the first place.
Saliby: Looking ahead, you’re headed to Michigan State University this month. What do you plan to study, and what do you want to do with that degree when you graduate?
Burns: I plan to study psychology through the honors program at Michigan State and my goal is to go into forensic psychology. I really wanted a chance to become an advocate, mostly for children within the legal field, and give them a chance to have treatment unbiasedly, and even other people that are often looked down upon because of where they’re at in life.
I wanted to be a person that they could come to for treatment, whether it’s legally obligated treatment, whether it’s a support group that I’m leading, I just wanted to be a person that everyone could talk to and feel like they were being looked at as an individual person, rather than what they did, what their past was, where they came from. I’m really hoping that’s what I can pursue someday.
Saliby: Olivia Burns is an incoming Michigan State University student who recently received a scholarship from the Justice League of Greater Lansing. Thank you for joining us.
Burns: Thank you for having me.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
