46 FALL 2021 | WWW.SHAKER.LIFE
Those larger questions are
what caught the attention of
Thomas Smyers, who graduated
from Shaker Heights High School
in June and is now a freshman at
Harvard University. Last spring,
Thomas was awarded a four-year,
$20,000 scholarship as the grand
prize winner in the 2021 “Stop the
Hate” contest, an initiative of the
Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage.
Additionally, Thomas’ high school will
receive a $5,000 anti-bias education
grant. Thomas says the premium
Shaker Heights Schools placed on
the written word encouraged him to
enter the contest.
“I think that’s really prevalent in
Shaker,” he said. “They really pushed
us to enter the Maltz competition.”
“My grandpa would
be proud of me,
but he would want
me to keep going.
Won’t you join me
on the journey?”
The contest celebrates Northeast
Ohio students committed to creating
a more accepting, inclusive society by
standing up and speaking out against
bias and bigotry. Thomas focused
his essay on his late grandfather,
Steven Minter, a Shaker resident and
trailblazing African American leader
in government and philanthropy, who
marched across the Edmund Pettus
Bridge for voting rights in Selma,
Alabama 56 years ago.
Thomas and his grandfather
had planned to retrace those steps.
But Minter, the former president
of the Cleveland Foundation, died
unexpectedly in 2019, before he and
Thomas could make the trip. Thomas
said he put his admiration, and his
regret, into words.
“I like to think that even without
retracing my grandpa’s steps on the
Edmund Pettus Bridge, I am walking
in his footsteps and helping to bend
the arc of this nation toward a more
equitable and just future,” Thomas
wrote. “My grandpa would be proud
of me, but he would want me to keep
going. Won’t you join me on the
journey?”
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