WASHINGTON (AP) — Two of the nation’s first black sextuplets are poised to graduate high school in Washington.

The 18-year-old siblings will attend Howard University in the fall.

Jackie Thompson, the mother of the sextuplets, made history when she gave birth to six children. One of the children was stillborn.

Around the same time Thompson’s children were born a family in the Midwest also welcomed sextuplets. At the time, a teenager named Jessica Abo saw a newspaper article describing the difference between how the two families – one white and one black – were treated, and began fundraising for the Thompsons.

Abo will attend the graduation ceremony.