Students in 10 cities win Princeton Prize in Race Relations

Princeton Prize

The Princeton Prize in Race Relations awards program honored outstanding high school students in 10 cities this year. At the Boston awards ceremony in May, Julius Coles (left), the president of Africare  and a Princeton graduate alumnus, joined Princeton President Shirley M. Tilghman (right) in honoring first-place winner Eun Jin Lee, a senior at Walnut Hill School in Natick, Mass.

Photo: Sameer A. Khan

The Princeton Prize in Race Relations awards program has recognized 55 high school students in 10 cities across the country for outstanding work to advance the cause of race relations.

Eleven students won the first-place cash prize -- as one city split the prize between two students -- while 44 students were awarded certificates of accomplishment. The first-place honor for each city's winner is $1,000.

Launched in 2003 by alumni in the Washington, D.C., and Boston metropolitan areas, the Princeton Prize in Race Relations recognizes high school students for their efforts to improve race relations in their schools or communities. The program was newly offered this academic year in the metropolitan areas of Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Miami, Chicago and San Francisco, in addition to last year's cities of Atlanta, Houston, St. Louis, Boston and Washington, D.C.

This year's winners showed extraordinary initiative in a wide range of projects that included establishing a program to increase the number of minority students in honors classes at one school, organizing an international cultural assembly, teaching Spanish to underprivileged elementary students, and establishing a nonprofit organization whose member groups hold cultural events in the United States and Africa.

Visit the Princeton Prize news page to learn about this year's winners from each city.

The awards program was developed and is administered by the volunteer Princeton Prize Committee, which consists of University alumni, administrators and students. It is sponsored by Princeton University's Alumni Council.