Rasha Harvey’s yearning to make things better provided a natural mechanism for him to become a leader. The challenges he has faced have been his motivation to be successful.
Two significant obstacles, including being raised in a single family home and living in public housing for 11 years, have not limited Rasha’s dreams. It’s his ability to dream and lead that brings people together and unites them for good causes.
As a student at Montgomery Bell Academy, Rasha had energized and educated his fellow students. He founded the school’s African American History Club during his sophomore year. In three years, the club is completely student run and has the strongest attendance and most exciting programs, ranging from presentations on problems facing African-American males to hip hop music and martial arts.
Rasha also serves as the president of the King Society, MBA’s honorary society. He mobilized the club’s members and other students and teachers participate in Nashville’s citywide Martin Luther King March. Participation was so successful that students talked about participating again next year. None of this would have been possible without Rasha’s dreams, determination and leadership.
While most students at MBA are taking things for granted, Rasha has grown up in a house without a father. His mother has been the sole provider, working two jobs to make ends meet, but missing out on many of Rasha’s extracurricular events. Living in the projects has included horrible experiences – a roach-infested unit thanks to unkempt neighbors, a break-in of his home by a drug addict looking for valuables to pawn and the defining moment of the murder of his 14-year-old cousin in a driveway of a nearby housing project.
Rasha describes himself as a dreamer – something he’s been since a young child. His dream is to become a lawyer because he wants the law to be better understood by society and used to eliminate present injustices.
