Zaila Avant-Garde: Spelling Bee Champ
Zaila Avant-Garde made history by becoming the first African American girl to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee. The 14-year-old claimed victory by accurately spelling the word ‘murraya’, sending her into twirls of happiness as confetti blew around. Her win has shown hope for other black students, especially considering the history between the National Spelling Bee and African Americans. Zaila is now the second black winner in the Spelling Bee’s 96-year history; the first one was Jody-Anne Maxwell from Kingston, Jamaica, who won in 1988. The soon-to-be ninth-grader says, “It felt really good to be a winner”.
The Scripps National Spelling Bee is a spelling competition where competitors are asked to spell words correctly to proceed until someone wins. This year, some new rules were added to give an edge to the competition. Along with the oral spelling rounds, there is now a multiple-choice vocabulary section, and in the case of a tie, there is a 90-second lightning round, where spellers spell as many words as they can within the time frame. Even with the new additions, Zaila was still able to proceed throughout the competition, all the way to the end. She spelled words like ‘retene’, ‘ancistroid’, and ‘depreter’. The word ‘nepeta’ was a big one for her, because as she says, she had struggled with that word before, and it would have really sucked to miss that one.
A photo of Zaila Avant-Garde.
With a last name like hers, it is no surprise that Zaila Avant-Garde has a record for doing such amazing things. Zaila holds 3 Guinness World Records for the most basketballs dribbled simultaneously (six basketballs for 30 seconds), the most basketball bounces (307 bounces in 30 seconds), and the most bounce juggles in one minute (255 using four basketballs). The young teen says that she sees spelling as a side hobby; basketball is her primary interest. She also possesses the ability to dribble a basketball while riding a unicycle, and she can also divide five-digit numbers by two-digit numbers. These achievements have gained her a heavy following on social media, and she was even featured in a commercial with NBA player Stephen Curry.
The journey to the National Spelling Bee has taken two years for Zaila. In a 2019 tournament, she made it all the way to the third round until she messed up with the word ‘vagaries’. Going through 18 rounds and having to study thousands of words was no easy task, but Zaila got it done. When she was spelling her final word she took her time, asking for the meaning and origin, and even if it included the word ‘murray’ as in the comedian Bill Murray. She says that the spelling bee was a gate-opener into being interested in education, and hopes that other black students take up this interest.
Historically, black students have not had it easy with spelling bees. However, even with obstacles like Jim Crow laws segregating black and white students, black students not having the same resources, such as spelling coaches, and spelling bee organizers finding ways to stop black students from advancing in the competition, there were black students who overcame the odds. One in particular is MacNolia Cox. MacNolia made it to the final round of the competition in 1936 and was the first black student to get that far. While competing, she was treated unfairly compared to other white students, but this did not stop her from making it all the way to the top five. She lost to the word ‘nemesis’ that she was not familiar with. The word was not technically eligible to be a word in the competition, since it was a proper noun. To the judges, however, it did not matter; MacNolia was already out. Decades later, Jody-Anne Maxwell won the competition, becoming the first ever black student to do so, and now Zaila joins as the first African American girl to win.
A typical Spelling Bee.
Zaila’s win was celebrated by many from the first lady, Jill Biden, to past winner, Jody-Anne Maxwell. Former president Barack Obama and Bernice King, the youngest daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King, also joined in congratulating Zaila. The mayor of New Orleans, Latoya Contrell, also took to social media to show support for the young teen, who hails from Louisiana. Many view this win as inspiration to black children everywhere. Now that someone has finally done it, many others will reach for opportunities to do it too.
It is quite clear that Zaila has big things ahead of her, and that once she sets her mind to something, she’ll get it done. She says that she plans on attending Harvard University, working at NASA, and playing basketball professionally. As she joins the list of African American trailblazers, Zaila hopes that other black girls and boys realize that they can accomplish goals like this, even if it has never been done. Zaila has been invited to the ESPY Awards by actor Anthony Mackie as congratulations for her win. To put it simply, many are excited to see what is next to come of Zaila.
SOURCES:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/09/us/zaila-avant-garde-spelling-bee-winner.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/11/us/spelling-bee-racism-zaila-avant-garde.html
IMAGES:
Zaila Avant-garde: Teenager makes history at US spelling bee [BBC]
A school spelling bee in 2011 [Wikimedia Commons - Heather Temske]