UPDATE: Homeless Black girl now thriving at Harvard

The story of Khadijah Williams, "the homeless black girl from Los Angeles who went from Skid Row to Harvard," has been in my thoughts lately. I first blogged about her incredible story way back in 2009, and since then she has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and is apparently thriving at the most prestigious university in the country.

Thanks to the power of Google (and a pretty distinctive first name) it was pretty easy to get an update on how Khadijah is doing now. She's in her Junior year at Harvard, majoring in Sociology, and an occasional blogger herself!

Here's an excerpt from one of her recent posts:

What makes students from our background “disadvantaged” is our understanding of parts of the world, which are different than (but not inferior to) the ways that are valued in this society. I have friends who are wealthy and have tons of intellectual learning, but not much experiential learning like you and I have. Going to college has allowed me to understand the importance of both. I’ve learned so much about the world talking to my friends and conversing with professors, reading books, and the like. But my experience and the learning that comes from it has allowed me to fully appreciate other experiences I had, such as my trip to South Africa (more at a later post). A lot of times, it seems all I hear as a low income student is how “disadvantaged” I am, how “lacking” I am as a nontraditional student. But going to college has helped me understand how my own background has given me the ability to appreciate experiences and situations at an experiential and an intellectual level.

Clearly, she knows how to write, and more importantly, also knows how to think. I am just happy that everything turned out fine. First Female Black President of the United States, anyone?