This is what Maya Angelou had in mind when she wrote about “the dream and the hope of the slave.”

Meet Alexis Sims, Nia-Sarai Perry, Cori’Anna White, Aiyana Ringo, Alyssa Richardson, Sophia Davis and Mariama Diallo — a group of young Black women who personify academic excellence.

These are seven Spelman College graduates — better known as the “Spelman Seven” — who all earned their degrees this year as class valedictorians, each with a perfect 4.0 grade point average.

They are, in the words of one social media admirer, “our ancestors’ wildest dreams.”

Their graduation this year marked the first time in the 144-year history of Spelman, a Historically Black College or University, that seven students shared the honor of being named valedictorian.

“Spelman is like a Black girl Disneyland, where we can come and be ourselves and grow in our excellence,” Alyssa Richardson, a biochemistry major from Washington, D.C, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Being distinguished with my sisters — it’s just amazing.”

The women, who were dubbed the “Spelman Seven” by the newspaper, represent a range of disciplines, from documentary filmmaking and sociology to political science and biochemistry.

Sophia Davis, a sociology and anthropology major and Spanish minor from Brooklyn, was a fellow at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Manhattan, where she conducted archival studies of entrepreneurship and beauty culture in mid-20th century Harlem.

“This is the true embodiment of what Spelman stands for: fostering sisterhood and friendship,” Davis told the newspaper. “To be able to share this moment with these other incredibly brilliant women feels like the culmination of everything that we’ve been working on over our four years together.”

Mariama Diallo, a documentary filmmaker and psychology major from Brooklyn, said she almost missed the cut.

“I took a class called Statistics and Psych, and I got an A minus, so I retook the class for an A,” she told the newspaper. “That was really the only close call, but I worked for it, and I got it, and we’re here now.”

The young women were in competition with each other, but they also encouraged each other and studied together.

They started as classmates, and became sisters.

That this sisterhood and display of excellence evolved at an HBCU is that much more satisfying given the country’s current environment.

That rich culture is on full display in a new Netflix series “A Different World,” a reboot of a popular TV show about life at a fictional HBCU campus.

In the first episode, the school’s provost, Hillman College alumnus Dwayne Wayne, played by veteran actor Kadeem Hardison, tells the new students what they are up against.

“This is a watershed moment where this country that we built is trying to erase our Black history, our gains, our culture,” the speaker says.

“They want to demoralize us. They want to deport us, they want to jail us, they want to shoot us down in the streets. But you, you all are their greatest threat. You, future leaders who care about justice, community and each other. I know you will stand up. I know you will fight, build and you will change the world.”

We should all salute Spelman’s world changers, because sometimes fact is even better than fiction.

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