Mekhi Bradford ’28 will represent the NAACP Albuquerque branch at the 2026 National ACT-SO Competition in July in three categories: written poetry, spoken work, and original written essay (about his CommuniEats project).
The Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological, and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) is a year-round achievement program designed to recruit, stimulate, and encourage high academic and cultural achievement among African American high school students. The National ACT-SO Competition is held annually during the NAACP National Convention, where students compete for scholarships, prizes, and recognition. Participants qualify for the national competition by winning gold at the local level.
Mekhi also wrote an essay that earned him a spot at the ACLU’s National Advocacy Institute in Washington, D.C. this summer. “I plan to apply all that I will learn to serving my community here at school as well as the Albuquerque community in general, especially in the areas of food insecurity and youth homelessness,” he said.
