For Skyelar Montgomery, receiving the African American Initiative Scholarship in 2021 heavily influenced her decision to attend UC Berkeley. It enabled her to forego worrying about the financial costs of college and focus instead on seizing every opportunity she could that nurtured her leadership abilities and passion for serving the Black community: as a senator in the Associated Students of the University of California; as the head of public relations for the Haas Undergraduate Black Business Association; as vice president of Alpha Kappa Alpha, the historically African American sorority, and more. She is graduating in 2025 debt-free with a degree in legal studies.
“As my time at Cal comes to an end, I am constantly reminded of the African proverb ‘It takes a village to raise a child,’” she said. “Berkeley has become my village, and the Black excellence and joy I am surrounded by each and every day has raised me into the young woman I am today.”
Montgomery spoke at a celebration on Feb. 20, 2025, welcoming the scholarship’s newest cohort of 27 students. Held at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union, the event brought together nearly 150 staff, alums, and donors to show their support for the students — often with rapturous applause.
Sociology alumna Cheryl Wright, president of the Black Alumni Association, drew a line from Black students of the past to those who are not yet born. She said that historically Black students had been forced to sit outside the classroom, leave campus by a certain time each night, and were erased from the yearbook. “But they refused to be invisible. They busted through doors, and they shattered ceilings — not just for themselves, but those who would come after them,” she said.
Speaking to the scholars, she said, “You are our trailblazers on your own unique path toward greatness, and as you climb, I ask one thing: Send the ladder back down for your brothers and sisters. Go back to your communities and show them that there are big black bears thriving at Cal, and that they, too, can come here.”