British rapper, AJ Tracey, launched a path to provide Black students a financial opportunity to attend Oxford University.
Tracey, 28, announced an initiative called The AJ Tracey Fund that’s geared towards offering financial support in the amount of £40,000 (roughly $45,062 in U.S. currency) per year for the first three years.
Potential candidates will also have the opportunity to be mentored.
The development of the new fund is in partnership with St. Peter’s College, which is known for being one of the few Oxford colleges to have accepted Black undergraduates since 1929.
“I think, in general, for anyone who doesn’t understand why Black people who have managed to become successful want to help Black kids, it should be self-explanatory,” he said in an interview with The Guardian.
“We’re just trying to level the playing field by helping Black kids.”
Tracey goes on to say he didn’t see himself as someone who’d attend a university such as Oxford or Cambridge, despite growing up with good grades and wanting to become a lawyer.
He stated during his interview that those goals seemed out of reach, given the circumstances he grew up in surrounding his neighborhood in Western London.
“I truly believe that I had the potential to go [to Oxford or Cambridge],” he mentioned in his interview.
“But it was just understood that if you’re from an impoverished upbringing or ethnic background it’s very hard to get in. Even if you’re intelligent, even if you know you can get those grades, it just feels out of reach. Unfortunately, the society that we live in, you know, it doesn’t favor people from a background like me. It’s not a sob story, it just is what it is.”
That experience motivated Tracey to provide an opportunity that he once felt was impossible to achieve.