The Tribune

By KEILE CAMPBELL

kcampbell@tribunemedia.net

FROM surviving Hurricane Dorian to becoming the first black valedictorian of Brooklyn College, Rhema Mills’ story is not conventional or straightforward.

When she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Health and Nutrition Sciences, it represented the peak of a journey that was interrupted by Hurricane Dorian. The hurricane destroyed her family’s business and prompted her to leave her “dream” school, New York University, because of the sudden financial difficulties she faced.

The Abaco native reflected on her journey and historic accomplishment yesterday, telling The Tribune that deciding to leave NYC was “the absolute worst day in my life” at the time.

“I fought, I worked so hard, I had gotten all the scholarships so that we could afford to send me to the school, and all of a sudden it kind of felt like that didn’t matter anymore in that even though I was qualified to go there and that I wanted to go there, that still wasn’t enough,” she said.  

She came to realise, however, that transferring to Brooklyn College was the best decision of her life.

She got involved in extracurricular activities: research programmes, a Women of Colour club, and an initiative to provide meals for students who did not have access to food at home.

She was told in February that she was eligible to be valedictorian but believed another student was potentially more qualified than her.

She gained confidence after a Zoom meeting with the deans of all the schools at the college, given their reactions to her. 

She was confirmed as valedictorian in April and learned she would be the college’s first black valedictorian while getting braids at a hair salon.

“I was saying, well, there’s no way that I’m the first because it’s 2024 and the school is almost 100 years old. There’s no way.

“Now, I had this in mind that the first black man to be named valedictorian of the school was only in 2017 or 2018, I believe, so I knew that he wasn’t so far out, but in the back of my mind, I was thinking, well, it had to be someone else.”

Learning about her distinction was “surreal”, she said, adding that it would open doors for many black women and immigrants like her.

“I would be the first in my family to graduate with a bachelor’s degree,” she said, “and I’m the first in my family to be moving to New York.

“I’m here, the first in my family to do a lot of things, but with valedictorian, this became less about my family, it became about the identities I hold, like, being a black woman, like being an immigrant, like being someone who hasn’t always had everything handed to them so I was opening the door for so many people, and I knew that when I got up on that stage, and when they made this announcement, that this would be a big deal, not just for me, but for all those people that I was encouraging.”

Ms Mills’ next step is a Masters in Public Health programme at Columbia University. She wants to be an epidemiologist, an ambition sparked by her father’s death during the COVID-19 pandemic and her battle with Crohn’s disease.

“Right now, I do research on maternal mortality among black women,” she said. “A lot of that is trying to understand why maternal deaths are so high among black women because it’s obviously a huge problem, not just in the US, but worldwide.”

“A lot of that was trying to understand not just the medical implications but the social implications, which is what a lot of public health is, so it’s always been my interest.”

Ms Mills is a former recipient of scholarships from the National Merit Scholarship and the Lyford Cay Foundations.