Brilliant Lady breaks New York University’s 94-year-old record, emerges first black valedictorian

However, with the support of her parents, friends, and her inner strength, she remained focused and graduated high school with honors earning national awards, along with more than $100,000 in scholarships.

Less than two years after her health battle, Hurricane Dorian destroyed her family’s business, and the COVID-19 pandemic put them in financial difficulties and she lost her father through the same Crohn’s disease.

Rhema said because of the situation, her dream of attending a private college in New York City was put on hold. She decided to choose Brooklyn College where she enrolled for a bachelor’s degree in Health and Nutrition Sciences.

“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 said that even though leaving New York City was the worst day of her life, moving to Brooklyn by herself at 20 to attend college allowed for more self-reflection, and the quality and value of the education made her dreams attainable.

At Brooklyn College, she got involved in extracurricular activities, research programs, a Women of Colour club, and an initiative to provide meals for students who did not have access to food at home.

Rhema said learning about her accomplishment was surreal, 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 and I’m the first in my family to be moving to New York,” she said. Rhema mentioned that she was the first in her family to achieve many things, but becoming valedictorian was especially significant.

She said she saw it as not just a personal accomplishment, but also a representation of her identity as a Black woman, an immigrant, and someone who had not always had everything handed to her.

Rhema said her next step is to pursue a Master’s in Public Health at Columbia University, United States. 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,” Rhema said.

“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,” she added.