Zaila Avant-garde

Zaila Avant-garde grew up in Harvey, Louisiana, and developed extraordinary discipline from a young age, training in both competitive spelling and basketball ball-handling, activities she pursued with equal dedication, studying word roots and language patterns for hours daily using a personally compiled database of hundreds of thousands of words.

In July 2021, Avant-garde won the Scripps National Spelling Bee, correctly spelling the word "Murraya" in the championship round, becoming the first African American winner in the competition's nearly century-long history and only the second Black champion overall, following a Jamaican student decades earlier. Her victory drew widespread national attention and celebration, including congratulations from prominent public figures.

Beyond spelling, Avant-garde is also a decorated athlete, holding three Guinness World Records for basketball ball-handling skills, and has spoken publicly about her ambition to play professional basketball or pursue a career in engineering or mathematics. She has used her platform to encourage other young Black students to pursue academic competition and to challenge stereotypes about who excels in spaces like the National Spelling Bee.