Part 2: The Planning Behind BSU’s Black History Month Presentations

As discussed previously in Part 1, BSU created three lessons to create their theme of Black Empowerment. In order for BSU to be able to pull off what they did a lot of planning went to it, some was stressful while other parts of the planning brought BSU together and every student involved became a family. 

The planning process to create these presentations was very stressful on every club member of BSU. They were able to get everything successfully done, all in the matter of two weeks. Students brainstormed at meetings, figuring out how they would be able to send a message to students. 

Planning started with a few ideas and all the students decided on making the overall theme. Starting ideas consisted of video creations, tributes, social media outlets, etc. Many students believed that the overall process went very well on the amount of limited resources and time. Maliyah Crowe explained her gratefulness that everyone was able to be involved during the planning process. 

“I love how everybody was so down to do stuff, especially because this has been a more stressful year than all the other school years combined,” said Crowe. “So just that everybody was able to find time to help out and pitch in, even though they didn’t have to, it was completely optional.”

When it came to planning, all students wanted to figure out the big question: “How are we going to make an impact on students in the amount of time we have?” 

“I think the main struggle was making sure that everything was covered within the time limit, since we didn’t get that much time to really expand and express everything,” said sophomore Issac Jones. 

For senior and video editor Tiffany Brown, video formatting was a struggle when it came to planning the videos. There was really only one strict guideline students had to follow, the videos had to be horizontal. Some students didn’t see those guidelines which led to BSU’s president having to send out emails asking students to create another video. 

“As an editor for the videos shown for BSU, a regular struggle that came with the process was asking people to record on their own and not having control over how the product came out. The best we could do as organizers was establish basic guidelines, while the stars did the rest of the magic,” said Brown. 

The process of planning was the highlight for many BSU students. As the first day of planning started students were just flowing out ideas to one another. One thing led to another and the planning process became students talking more about their black mothers and how protective they were. Students explained how their mom’s are the loudest in the stands during sports games, and Christopher Jackson, who’s from a completely different generation, had the exact same stories as the students. 

The day was eye opening for all students, simply because they saw that within different cultures and generations in the black community, they all have similar stories that connect them together. It was a full on laughing moment that every single student in BSU understood way too well. 

“…what came out of it was our connections, our black culture experience of growing up, we’re in different generations and then we start talking about black Mamas and how they behave supporting their babies at sporting events,” said BSU adviser Christopher Jackson. “… it just affirmed that no matter what generation we are part of, we all are still connected..”

Planning had its ups and downs, but no one watching those videos would have ever known how hard it was for students to create everything. This is because no matter the struggles they faced students were able to persevere and create masterpieces. Jackson explained it best when he discussed how much of an impact it has on him when he sees his people succeed through the odds 

“I’m just proud of my heritage, you know, that no matter what, we come out of it stronger, we produce something we created. You [society] put us in an environment that is just, you know, hopeless to some people and we come out, shining with something else,” said Jackson.