Yale has created the Pennington Fellowship, a new scholarship that will support graduates of New Haven public high schools who attend Historically Black Colleges and Universities. 

The merit-based scholarship program is named for the Reverend James W.C. Pennington, who is recognized as the first Black student to attend Yale. It will support about forty to fifty students at any time, and each will receive up to $20,000 toward tuition and fees per year. 

The new program will be administered by the New Haven Promise program, which the university co-founded in 2010 to provide scholarships to the city’s public school students who attend college in Connecticut. Separate from and incremental to New Haven Promise, the Pennington Fellowship will help additional students attend participating HBCUs around the country.

“This scholarship addresses, in part, historical disparities in educational opportunities for Black citizens,” Yale President Peter Salovey said in an announcement to the Yale community. 

Read more about the Pennington Fellowship, which is an outcome of Yale’s broader work to address its historical roles in and associations with slavery, the slave trade, and abolition.