Man launches petition for music scholarship fund celebrating life of Austin bombing victim Draylen Mason
Draylen Mason, 17, was one of the victims killed in the recent bombings in Austin, Texas.
He was a talented bass player with dreams of going to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. But even though Mason was accepted to the school, he never found out that good news; he was killed before he knew his dreams were coming to fruition.
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That story deeply affected Joshua Blue who graduated from Oberlin in 2016. He was touched by the story of a fellow Black musician dreaming of making a career out of his passion, CNN reported.
So, Blue decided to launch a petition to ask Oberlin to create a scholarship fund in Mason’s name.
“People of color continue to be appallingly underrepresented in the musical arts. A student who was clearly up for the challenge, Draylen would have been entering the world of music without many mentors who look like him,” Blue wrote on the online petition page. “His entry into musical academia would in itself be a radical action, and for his sake, and for those who are put off by the lack of representation, this needs to change.”
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Blue had originally asked for only 700 signatures. That would be one signature for each student at Oberlin’s Conservatory of Music.
But to his surprise, in only one day, the petition had 1,500 signatures, more than twice what he was asking for.
“I thought that at the very least it was going to be a gesture of good faith,” Blue said.
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Now, Blue is reaching higher, looking for 3,000 signatures, which would be about the entire student body of Oberlin College.
In the meantime, he’s in contact with Mason’s family as well as with the school to see how to make this idea a reality.
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