David Johns, executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans, will deliver remarks and present achievement medals to the winners of the 37th annual NAACP National ACT-So competition on Sunday, July 12, in Philadelphia. Johns will discuss the Initiative's activities and the importance of ensuring educational excellence for African American students to help them succeed in school and in life.
The NAACP's Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics is a yearlong program designed to recruit, stimulate and encourage high academic and cultural achievement among African-American high school students. ACT-SO includes 26 categories of competition in the sciences, humanities, business, and performing and visual arts. More than 26,000 young people have participated in the program since its inception.