On June 15, Desi Hall ’19 celebrated the one-year anniversary of the Frances Thompson Education Foundation, an organization that provides sustainable, no-strings-attached scholarship support for Black transgender and non-binary students. Hall serves as founder and executive director and hopes to extend continued support to Black trans students working towards their degrees.

For Hall, the mission she’s developed over the last year is close to her heart. Not only has she seen Black trans students displaced at a greater level and facing new challenges during the pandemic, but she has also drawn from her past experiences and struggles as a Black trans college student herself.

Hall came to Birmingham-Southern as a transfer student, with interests in the College’s E-Term opportunities and in contracting a major in journalism. Eventually, she enrolled in Dr. Amy Cottrill’s course on Black liberation theology and decided to declare a religion major, in which she wrote her thesis on Solange Knowles and womanist theology.

Her studies in religion led her to Vanderbilt University, where she received her master’s in theological studies with certificates in religion, gender, and sexuality and Black church studies.

“My main area of research was curating a theological framework that was centered around Black trans people and our religious experiences,” Hall says. “We have a deep and rich connection to the Black church but have also undergone magnificent transformations in our lives that make us outsiders to many spaces.”

At Vanderbilt, Hall developed a framework called hush theology that is centered on Black trans individuals. The framework references hush harbors, the spaces enslaved people would go for religious practices that were not allowed by their enslavers. Because her research was something so personal to her and grounded in her own experiences, Hall says the process was emotionally draining while simultaneously digging deeper and caring for herself – but she has now broken ground in a new area of research.

“Our religious experiences are so different than those of cis people or even white trans people,” Hall says. “Black religious studies are also marginalized in comparison to the broader religious studies field, especially when you talk more specifically about Black trans folks.”

Hall’s academic work – as well as her own experiences throughout childhood and adulthood – quickly led her to starting her own foundation for Black trans college students. She looks back on her time as a Hess Fellow in the Krulak Institute as formative on her current work in the nonprofit sector. She paired her background in nonprofits with her recognition of what kind of support Black trans students need.

“We need something that will be long-lasting,” Hall says, “and I came up with the idea of a foundation with no-strings-attached scholarships. So many Black trans students get into college but have to make choices between paying for and staying in school, going to work, paying for meals, or going to the doctor to get hormones. We can help mitigate those choices by providing more support.”

In brainstorming what the foundation would look like, Hall remembered her own experiences as a college student. Her time relied on “impossible choices between school, work, and trying to survive,” and she knew COVID-19 would amplify the difficulty for students making these choices, especially if they were tied to financial support that required a specific GPA or other college experience.

Hall created the mission and website for the Frances Thompson Education Foundation – named after the former slave from Memphis, Tennessee, and first known trans woman to testify before a U.S. congressional committee – and started to raise money. For its first cohort in fall 2020, the foundation awarded $60,000 to 20 Black trans and non-binary students from across the country (and one in Jamaica.) For its second cohort, the foundation’s goal is to support both a fall and a spring term for 10 students – what Hall sees as even more sustainable, retaining financial support.

“We can offer more technical support to 10 students versus 20 – that felt more intentional,” she says. “It is so important for Black trans students to have sustainable funding. Everybody deserves to be retained, and we are the only organization that I have seen focused on Black trans students who do not have to sell out their trauma.”

For the 2021-22 academic year, the Frances Thompson Education Foundation will have a special focus on the South and the Birmingham area. Birmingham is the city that helped her thrive, Hall says, and she is still based between Atlanta and her hometown of Selma.

As the foundation grows, Hall hopes to see higher education as a whole continue to invest in Black trans students and other marginalized individuals facing barriers.

“Guilt or pity does not sustain these students,” she says. “Genuine investment is true support.”

Hear more from Hall in her 100 Minutes on the Hilltop talk from 2018.