Black Panther stars, Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong’o and Danai Gurira and Chadwick Bose are continuing to impact the community.
During The Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment event over the weekend, the partial cast awarded Kalis, 17, with a massive Black Panther Scholarship. The grant was created by Walt Disney Studios in “support of young, diverse voices in entertainment.”
“Black Panther has shown the world how much you can achieve when you make stories not just for one people but for everyone,” Nyong’o said.
The high school student is from Inglewood, California and was a participant of The Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment Mentorship Program. The actors gifted Kalis, who wants to become a pediatric dermatologist, with the $250,000 scholarship to cover her four-year tuition to Loyola Marymount University.
Gurira added, “We know that if we want to live in a world that looks more like Wakanda, the first step is you invest in some girls and women.”
After being awarded the scholarship, Kalis said: “I would like to thank my parents who birthed me, who made me who I am today. … I just want to stand and say this is for girls who live in Compton, who live in Inglewood, and this is for girls and men who face adversaries. I just want to say that we can do it and it is possible.”
Black Panther was a 2018 EBONY Power 100 Entertainment & Arts honoree for the history it made at the box office with a predominantly African-American cast including raking in $1.3 billion worldwide.
Watch the surprising moment in the video below.
