Woman shares her mother's reaction to law school acceptance: 'If you need to see a little black joy'
25-year-old's acceptance includes an annual $40,000 scholarship
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Your support makes all the difference.A woman who was admitted into law school has shared her mother’s excited reaction to finding out about the acceptance.
Melinda Oliver, from St Louis, had been waiting for weeks to hear back from the DePaul University College of Law regarding her application, when she finally got an email on Tuesday.
In the email, Oliver learned that not only had she been accepted, but that she had been awarded an annual $40,000 in recognition of her "achievements, personal qualities and potential to contribute to the DePaul community”.
According to the 25-year-old, the person she was most excited to tell was her mother, Linda, who adopted her as a single mother and who she told NBC News has been her “biggest supporter”.
Oliver decided to record her mother’s reaction, which she then shared on Twitter to show “black joy”.
“If you need to see a little black joy, please watch my mom's reaction when I told her I got into law school with a $40,000 annual scholarship,” Oliver captioned the video.
In the clip, Linda can be seen opening the letter before reacting in shock and joy at her daughter’s acceptance.
Since sharing the video on Wednesday, it has been viewed more than 14m times, and prompted thousands of supportive comments.
According to Oliver, she especially wanted to share her mother’s joy over her acceptance in light of the recent protests fighting against police brutality and racism in the US.
"We've all been watching what's going on. I'm from St Louis, so I've seen this play out both in my hometown and nationally," Oliver said. "It's traumatic and hurtful to see people saying disrespectful things and sharing videos of violence as well as to not be supported in schools and workplaces.”
She said that she wanted to share the video as a reminder that "black people are still out there."
"We're still out there, we're still happy, we're still living, we're still finding joy and we still have community," Oliver told the outlet.
On Twitter, the future law student also reminded her followers not to “ever sell yourself short or give up”.
“I really feel compelled to let y’all know I self studied for the LSAT while working full time. It took me forever to pay off what I still owed my undergraduate school to get my transcripts. And I did not have a damn 4.0 GPA,” Oliver wrote. “DON'T EVER SELL YOURSELF SHORT OR GIVE UP WE NEED YOU.”
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