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The Elmore Bolling Initiative (TEBI) invites local high school seniors to apply for its 2024 college scholarship. Applicants must be prospective graduates from either The Calhoun School or Central High School in Lowndes County.

Applications are due by April 1. The winner will receive a $1,000 scholarship. 

Students must complete an application and essay detailing how their post-high school goals align with the life and legacy of Elmore Bolling, an industrious man whose ingenuity and keen business sense earned him a comfortable living and drove him to uplift his community with good-paying jobs and philanthropy. 

Bolling’s life was cut short at age 39 by a group of white men, enraged that Elmore was “too prosperous as a Negro.”  No criminal investigation or indictments followed Elmore Bolling’s lynching in 1947.

“During his life my father emphasized entrepreneurship, education, and citizenship,” said Josephine Bolling McCall, Elmore Bolling’s youngest child, a retired educational psychologist and a native of Lowndes County. “Our scholarship program honors his legacy.”

Since 2014, TEBI has provided over $10,000 in scholarships to graduates of Lowndes County Public Schools. Scholarship winners may attend either two-year or four-year colleges. Previous scholarship recipients have attended Alabama State University, Auburn University-Montgomery, Bishop State Community College, Trenholm State Community College, Tuskegee University, and University of West Alabama.

To complete an application, go to https://bollinginitiative.org/our-impact/scholarship. 

The public is invited to support the scholarship program with a donation at www.bollinginitiative.org/.