For over 30 years, WJZ-TV has given High School Students across Maryland a chance to speak up and speak out about the issues that matter in the WJZ Black History Oratory Competition.
Students write an original essay (500 words or less) based on one of these quotations:
“Service to your people is the rent you pay for living on this earth.”
Dr. Lillie May Carroll Jackson
“We are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity, and society cannot trample on the weakest and feeblest of its members without receiving the curse on its own soul.”
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."
Jackie Robinson
The Top 20 Students with the highest-scoring essays will be invited to perform their speeches in person, in front of an audience of family, friends, and judges, to compete for scholarship prize money. The Speech Event will be streamed live on CBS News Baltimore at WJZ.com.
WJZ will announce the Winners on the air during the WJZ Black History Oratory Competition Awards Special, where the Top Speeches will be broadcast on TV!
All essays and signed application forms must be emailed to Oratory@wjz.com by 11:59 pm on Monday, January 20th. Please note that essays are due earlier this year than previously!
Click the links to download the Essay Prompt, Application Form, and Official Rules!
For more information please visit: wjz.com/oratory
If you have question please email: Oratory@wjz.com
This competition is open to Maryland High School Students in Grades 9-12.