The Black Student Union has upcoming events for Black History Month, including a kick off poetry slam that was held last week.
“Our Poetry Slam was really just a space where if kids had any spoken word, they could go ahead and spit that. If they rap, because rapping is rhyming, they could spit that too. Even if they wrote a song, they could come and spit that too. It really was an event to start off our Black History Month,” Marrisa Charleston, club sponsor, said.
The club members are looking forward to the upcoming events this February.
“I’m excited they’re going to be fun, with being surrounded by a lot of people I like,” Isaiah Ivy, junior, said.
“Our next event is our Black History Month Panel which is on Feb. 25 during lunch periods in the Auditorium. All students are welcome to come, and they’re just going to hear about different experiences of people of color, and how they got to whatever area of their career that they are at right now,” Charleston said.
Most of the planned events will focus on culture rather than just history.
“The events relate to Black History because it’s about the culture. There’s some history involved, but mainly it’s the culture,” officer Aaliyah Fsrazier, junior, said.
“Black Student Union is a space where all students, not just students of color, can feel welcomed and accepted on campus. It is an organization that promotes diversity and inclusion. It helps students that are a part of the club help bring awareness to our different cultural differences on school grounds,” Charleston said. “We meet every Thursday after school, so if anyone wants to pop out to our meeting everybody is welcome.”
The club members have tactics on how to encourage students to join the club.
“Not going to lie, I just told people there were snacks, and they just came,” Chrissy Frazier, senior, said.
Club members have a reason on why they joined the club.
“ I joined because I wanted to learn about African-American culture, and there were some snacks too,” Ivy said.
The club believes that Black representation is needed in the school.
“There are so many studies that have been shown that kids of color, students of color learn better with people who look like them,” Charleston said. “I am a product of a predominantly white school. I went to Downers Grove North High School. It wasn’t until I got my first female black teacher,well she wasn’t even my teacher honestly she was my step coach. She showed me what a role model was, and how she hears me, and sees me.”
Charleston would like to recreate that type of experience for students.
“A lot of times students and people are going to feel more comfortable about who looks like them, and share their experiences than people that don’t. I think it is super important that we have representation, and kids feel like they have a community.” Charleston said.