Easy as A,B,C……
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Zaila Avant-garde understood the significance of what she was doing as she stood on the Scripps National Spelling Bee stage, peppering pronouncer Jacques Bailly with questions about Greek and Latin roots.
Zaila knew she would be the first African American winner of the bee. She knew Black kids around the country were watching Thursday night’s ESPN2 telecast, waiting to be inspired and hoping to follow in the footsteps of someone who looked like them. She even thought of MacNolia Cox, who in 1936 became the first Black finalist at the bee and wasn’t allowed to stay in the same hotel as the rest of the spellers.
But she never let the moment become too big for her, and when she heard what turned out to be her winning word — “Murraya,” a genus of tropical Asiatic and Australian trees — she beamed with confidence. It was over.
Declared the champion, Zaila jumped and twirled with joy, only flinching in surprise when confetti was shot onto the stage.
“I was pretty relaxed on the subject of Murraya and pretty much any other word I got,” Zaila said.
“It was the smile and twirls for us!” Scripps National Spelling Bee said on Twitter, referencing Avant-garde’s reaction to spelling her final word correctly. “After tying for 370th place in 2019, Speller 133 Zaila Avant-garde wins the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee.”
Along with being the competition’s first Black American winner in its nearly 100-year history, she is also its first Louisiana champion, it said. She is also the second Black contestant to win since Jody-Anne Maxwell of Jamaica became the Bee’s first non-American winner in 1998.
