Episode 6 - Black United Students
Brianna Molitor
Hey everyone and welcome to flashes of DEI, a Podcast where we explore topics and ideas related to diversity, equity and inclusion. My name is Bri Molitor. I am the Project Director here in DEI and my pronouns are she/her/hers.
Katie Mattise
I'm Katie Mattise. I'm a director here in DEI and I use they/their pronouns,
Brianna Molitor
Black United Students or BUS has been an important part of Kent State University for over 50 years, officially becoming a student organization in 1968. Since then, BUS has gone on to do a lot of community building and advocacy work to push KSU forward. Today we have two amazing guests who are going to help us explore that history and talk a little bit about the organization's present and future. Would you both mind introducing yourselves and going a little bit into your involvement with us?
Deanna Baccus
Alrighty, I'll go first. My name is Deanna Baccus. I'm a sophomore, a computer science major from Dayton, Ohio. And my position in BUS is I'm the Director of Academic Affairs, and also I go by she/her pronouns.
Mwatabu Okantah
My name is Mwatabu Okantah I am an associate professor and the interim chair here in the Department of Africana Studies. I'm a graduate of KSU with my undergraduate degree, and I was active in BUS in the 1970s. I was vice president of BUS in the 1972/1973 academic year. So my history with BUS goes back a long time.
Katie Mattise
Yeah, that's really exciting. And I'm super excited and Bri and I are super excited to talk to both of you right now seems especially busy for people. So we appreciate you taking the time to be able to talk with us a little bit about BUS. If you're ready, we've got questions lined up and ready to go for them. You can't see it, but they're shaking their heads. Yes. So yeah. Perfect. Thank you. So for our listeners who have maybe never heard of Black United Students or BUS before, could you give a little bit of a brief overview.
Mwatabu Okantah
I think I will start with Black United students was originally organized in the winter of 1967 in response to a visit to campus by two members of a Black self defense unit during the Civil Rights Movement. They would call the Deacons for Defense. They were actually brought to campus by SDS, the students for democratic society. The following year in 1968, they engaged the university in protest over the university allowing the presence of the Oakland police force on campus. They came to campus to recruit and Black United students went to the administration to ask them to have them removed. The administration refused. And so Black United Students staged a walk off campus close to 300 Black students left campus. The university had to negotiate with them to get them back. And they demanded a Black studies program to deal with curriculum issues. They demanded a Black Cultural Center to deal with social and cultural issues. They demanded more Black faculty and staff on campus and so in 1969, the university agreed Dr. Edward Crosby was brought to campus and he founded what is now the Department of Africana Studies. It began as a program called the Institute for African American affairs. It grew from there.
Katie Mattise
That's awesome. student activism created a department and many more things that we'll talk more about. Deana, anything you would add to that.
Deanna Baccus
I feel like if you're looking at it from a younger perspective of somebody who's like a student who does not know the history of BUS, it's just a place where it's super Black centric. And a place where it's a safe space for most students who are Black and need that safe space at a PWI, so it's always been a familiar home and a place for many students. And it's literally meant for students made by students.
Mwatabu Okantah
You know, one of the things I like to say to students, those are very exciting times, they're very scary times. There was a Black student, Black Studies movement. So 1967 at San Francisco State University, I think is really the first Black studies program. I arrived on campus in 1970. So what I like to say to students, and it's literal for me, the present generation, their present was our dream out of 100% Okay, and and part of my job now is to try to help students understand that kind of connection. And it's also to say to those of us who are on campus now, to understand that what we do now is really about for those young people who will be coming here after we're gone.
Katie Mattise
Yeah. Yeah. An important reminder that like the things we do now impact, the future, right, the people who come after us,
Brianna Molitor
yeah, our next question was about the context and creation of Black United Students. I think that really covered a lot of it. So I'm just gonna go ahead and jump on right to the next question, which is what have been some of the big milestones for BUS throughout the years? Are there any events or initiatives that either of you would like to highlight
Mwatabu Okantah
when I arrived on campus, the cultural center was a frame house, it was called the ward house. It sat on the hill with the Business Administration Building is now we were a small operation, but they were dedicated students. Because you got to keep in mind we will create it against the will of the university so there was really not a lot of support. And so when I was vice president of BUS after the ward house was torn down. We called it the Khumba house. Okay. And when the New Student Senate because what's now Oscar Richie hall when I arrived on campus was it was the student center. When the new student center and library opened Black United Students, our offices were move to Rockwell which is now the fashion museum, fashion school. And we had space in there. We came on to the first floor of what all student union we refuse to leave. And it was President Glenn Oles at the time. He gave in and gave us the first floor of what's now Oscar Ritchie Hall. That's 1972. So over the next couple of decades, I think by 1997, we took over the whole building. And so it's been a long history to control this space. What was interesting for me in 2018, the 50th anniversary of bus, bus was sited on the floor of the State House. It was a surreal moment for me, because when when I was a member of bus, they would not have allowed us to get within a mile. Yeah. And we would have disrupted it, but you know, what that also said to me, was a recognition that throughout our history, we've not tried to destroy Kent State. Have we disrupted it from time to time? Yes, for the better. I would say it's all been in an effort to make Kent State a better place. And then I'll say this, and, you know, Deanna can add her perspective. When President Warren was here. She acknowledged that what was then the Department of Pan African studies that this program actually opens the door for all the area studies programs on campus. And I think that's an important acknowledgement. Because yes, Black United students we call Ritchie Hall, the house that bus built, but it was never ultimately just about Black students. Okay, and, and I think that has also been borne out in our history on this campus. Yeah.
Deanna Baccus
100% agreed. Again, I feel like a lot of people would have wished we weren't complacent. But with with not being complacent. There was so many things able to happen, like for example, having a multicultural center, being able to have a social culture, programming fun and having outreaches to community service places like King Kennedy Center and even having a liaison within USG. It's just these milestones that we were made to be able to keep building on to is such an amazing thing that like our past, they built this up so we can keep keep going and never become complacent within BUS.
Katie Mattise
Yeah. I remember shortly after I started working at Kent State. I started like looking into the histories and the different centers and all this kind of stuff and different student orgs and realized like, BUS pretty much helped create Black History Month, right, like BUS along with other faculty and staff on Ken's campus, and I was like, Why isn't that on billboards? Everywhere? There's like such a, I don't know a beautiful history of BUS. And so I'm grateful that y'all are speaking to it and and talking about how it's not going to stop, right? that there's more
Mwatabu Okantah
that has been getting more national attention. Last year, or two years ago, we acknowledged that it was Black United students that extended what was then National Negro History Week. And to a month long celebration. And maybe two or three weeks ago, I got an email from NPR they're doing a story on that. Oh, hey. And they had seen some pictures. There's a picture of it, some of the brothers from Black United students standing out in front of the old administration building, which is now Cartwright Hall. And they were out there and they were all with their Black power salute. I mean, that's the way it campus was when I arrived on campus as a young 18 year old. So it was very, very exciting. But that idea that history is making its way to being recognized nationally. Last year, I was invited to do an interview with the young man putting together a documentary on Black History Month and he found that out. So more and more of this information is getting out.
Katie Mattise
Yeah. Which is good and should be known and should be recognized.
Mwatabu Okantah
Well, if the university promotes it, it gets out. And that's part of the struggle. And I will say, you know, and I've discussed this with President Diacon, you know for most of my career here, because I've been on faculty, this is my 31st year, congrats and most of my relationship to University has been adversarial. Okay, and now that I'm in the position that I'm in, you know, one of the things that I speak to upper administration about is what we have on campus is one of the jewels of this campus. There is no Black Cultural Center on a college campus like this one anywhere else in the country. We housed an art gallery. We have a theater, we have our own lecture hall. We have a multipurpose room, office space for faculty classrooms, space for academics, office space for our student groups. So kent state can show other universities had deal with this
Deanna Baccus
I go and talk to a lot of the freshman class just to tell them about BUS. And I told them about Black history month and it's so sad when you see these students who like took their first year experience classes already. And I had to tell him I'm like, Hey, you do know Black history month was made here. And it's just it's kind of annoying sometimes to see how your history is not as important in the eyes of someone else, even though it's so enriching, and it's motivating to other people outside even that culture alone. So it's I think it's something really to be proud about and something amazing that I'm happy that I finally get to see Kent State on social media sites being like, Black History Month made here. And it's just amazing. And I just wish we could keep working with the University and keep getting those relationships of publicizing us in a better light. And just letting us talk where we need to talk. Yeah,
Katie Mattise
absolutely. And not just touting or being proud only during Black History Month, right? Yeah.
Mwatabu Okantah
In fairness to this generation of students, I mean, times very, very different. Well, I was a first year student, the civil rights movement is evolving into the Black liberation movement, the Black Arts Movement. I mean, this was going on all over the country. You know, your parents didn't have to tell you, your teachers didn't have to tell you. You could see that things were going on. That's not necessarily the case for this generation of students. Although the occurrence of what has become the Black Lives Matter movement is taking place in their lifetime. And that energy is here on campus. To some degree, this this mess of a pandemic as kind of shut a lot of that kind of activity down. Yeah. I've had conversations with Larry Simpson, who was the president of BUS when they walked off campus, and Larry said something to me that it took me aback when he first said it. But his point was, it was easier for our generation to create this because we were in a situation where there was nothing here for us. So we wanted to create something. He said that it's his opinion, that BUS now has a harder job or task. The landscape has changed. And so as activists we have to find new ways. To to reach out.
Katie Mattise
You talked a little bit about the evolution of, of movements, right, specifically the civil rights movement, and how what a student activist has kind of evolved to is different from what it was, you know, in the 60s and 70s, right so I'm wondering if you're could talk to or about a little bit more the evolution of BUS from its kind of inception to now and how it's had to evolve and how it if we're combining two questions in one how it could potentially continue to evolve.
Mwatabu Okantah
This evolves because time changes, Nothing stays the same. The seven days are over, they're not coming back. And what I say to this generation of students, it's like, they have to learn from that history. But I don't want them to think they have to recreate it. You can't allow the big picture to overwhelm you. When there is a small picture right in front of you, that you can influence. What when I walked the halls of Oscar Ritchie Hall. It is just confirmation to me. What a group of dedicated and serious young people can do if they have a vision and if they are willing to work together. When I don't think that's changed.
Deanna Baccus
and on my side of that, one thing I've always appreciated being part of BUS about is to how it's 100% student first, always and will be student first. And with that you have students in these positions, making sure that students are first and we all have our own personal missions. That we literally go over and our e- board meetings, we have our own personal missions within our positions and what we want to bring to the table. So you have these new generation of people each and every single time of year, who are willing to give people within their same age group the feelings they have the pain, happiness, cries, joy, all the same feelings and emotions that we have that we want to give to our other students. And it's just an amazing thing to see because it's evolved every single year and every single day and even our events are made for the students. It's not made for us. We don't we don't have a personal agenda. Our personal agenda is making sure our Black students are comfortable on this campus, no matter what place and no matter where. And it's just an amazing thing to see because you have our trailblazers who made this happen for us. And then you have us who are making sure it stays and keeps going and that we leave a legacy for the people that come after us too. And I think one of the greatest things that you said, what will the future of us be like? It will be legacies giving other legacies opportunities to move forward. And I think that's amazing about BUS and being part of the history of us.
Katie Mattise
I love that in both of your answers about evolution. There was yeah, there's been evolution but like, let's look at what's remain the same, right the core commitments, the advocacy, the caring about Black students on campus, right so there may be new people or new avenues, but that core is still the same. And I'm glad to hear that the plans to keep that at the core are there for the future.
Mwatabu Okantah
Let me also add students are the core focus of our program. But we've also been involved in community engagement throughout our history. And so the king Kennedy Center, for example, there in Ravenna. It was paid for because Black United Students was able to get a box on the registration form that you could check to donate money to have that center built. Wow. Okay. And you know, our students the last two summers another example were celebrating Juneteenth on their own. And they were rousted by the police. Okay, because police get nervous when you see young Black kids coming together in a park and is getting ready to be dark. And so DEI through Dr. Gooden other people on campus, we've come together to to do a Juneteenth festival. Okay, so that we can work with our students, but at the same time, mediate between our students in the city students and the police so that the police understand what Juneteenth is about. And, to the degree that university lends its name to the celebration. It can help legitimize what our students were already doing on their own. And that's important. Yeah.
Brianna Molitor
Especially when you're talking about students first. You know, it's good for campus to feel safe, but you need to be able to go off campus and know that you can hang out at the park and you can go downtown without having that extra fear or concern or hassle. Yes, so two very important stuff. So I will lead us into our next question, which I know we've kind of already touched base on where do you see BUS in the future and how do you think it will continue to develop?
Deanna Baccus
like I said before I see BUS and it's so like, it just makes me happy just to say this. I see BUS as a place that will recognize its Black students in and outside of campus from graduation, from their careers, their futures and just supporting them no matter what from alumni reaching out to the undergrads to the graduate students reaching out to us. And it's such a beautiful thing because I can see us working with multiple places working with multiple people, things and hype situations like that and just being cemented in history as students first with the idea that we will always leave a legacy behind us every single year for the next students to come on. And we won't leave you feeling empty. I want it to be known for feeling the passion and knowledge that you gained from it from the experience the time to what made you to be a person today. And I can even admit to that what made me to be a person today in my one year of doing it has shaped me into the person I know I wanted to be since I was young. And I see that still happening on years and years that go by so that's that's how I see BUS would be like the future.
Mwatabu Okantah
For me being I'll call myself a graduate of BUS, graduate of this program and to be in the position that I'm in now. You know, back in the 70s Black United Students on this campus was probably the strongest Black student group in the state and one of the strongest in the country. And so, at our events and activities, Black students from all over the state would come and one of the things that I've encouraged BUS to do and I know they're working on it, they can recapture that space by holding statewide and national Black student conferences. And I tell them, you want students come in here from other universities and just watch them react to this space. And that will give you a deeper appreciation of what we have here on this campus. And when you see people come or when they the alumni come and they see alumni walk through these halls in tears. Because they cannot believe What Oscar Ritchie Hall looks like. That's how they gain I think a deeper appreciation of what they've inherited. Yeah. And so for me, and I'm picking up on something Deanna said, you know, when I was in BUS I was one of the youngest people. I was always around. I didn't I didn't run for office, I became vice president of BUS because the person who was elected to the office resigned. I was always around and so it's it's very deep for me that now I'm the elder on my faculty. And so now a lot of my students, are like my grandchildren. It's also about working with young people to bring generations closer together. What Kwanzaa is about, that's what Juneteenth is about. Where we'll see the older people, the young people, the people in between everybody comes together. To the degree that BUS, I know reaches out to the LGBTQ Center. I know they reached out to the Women's Center, reach out to the SMC. So in the future, you know, and for me, the future is not some place waiting for us. The future is what we create now in the present. Yeah, they can pull off hosting these conferences again. That will go a long way for creating a much better future.
Katie Mattise
Yeah, collective power, right connecting with other groups, other students from different campuses, other places around Kent State. Yeah, working together and doing it. I'm down and before we totally wrap things up, are there any other things you would like to share about us, including any like social media or places people can go to find out more
Deanna Baccus
Say less on social media. So, again, we have an IG page. That's where most of the time we post what's going on and what plans we have on doing we hold our mass meetings, and we just inform people and let them know what we're doing. It's called Black United students. And with going on that IG let's say you need help. One of the things Black United Student does really well we provide so many assistance and provide mediators for you. So like, for example, Academic Affairs, let's say you and your professor having a dispute and you really just don't know what to do. Guess what, you have this person who can help you communicate what you need, who's read the policies and knows how to communicate with a professor on that level. And there's so many other sides of that. So that is another way to reach out for help and so know who to contact. So again, Black United Students has our IG page and we'll be holding applications soon around mid March. For positions because guess what, you got to keep the ball rolling and with every new year, new people, so it'd be really great. Those are going to be on our IG. We'll be holding meetings about those And that's all I have to say on my end.
Mwatabu Okantah
From from the Department's point of view, and this information is about to come out. We were planning our annual Pan African festival. which will be April 27 ,28th and 29th. This year's Pan African festival is going to be dedicated and will be a celebration of Dr. Crosby and his wife, Shirley Crosby, who were are the mother and father of this program. And so we'll be working with BUS we'll be working with the KSU Black Alumni Chapter and pulling this event off.
Katie Mattise
So late April has things to look out for
Mwatabu Okantah
yes, April 27 28th 29th.
Katie Mattise
And if you're a student listening, interested in BUS or are already part of us submit your application to be on the e-board
Brianna Molitor
it's an exciting time. Yeah, lots of stuff coming up.
Deanna Baccus
Yeah, I know so much stuff.
Brianna Molitor
Awesome. Well, thank you both for being here and for talking to us. We appreciate your time. We appreciate you sharing your knowledge. And thank you to everyone for tuning in and listening. If you're interested in learning more about the DEI feel free to check out our website at kent.edu/diversity.
Katie Mattise
And if you've got a topic you'd like us to discuss, feel free to email us at diversity@kent.edu or connect with us on social media @DEIKentstate across platforms. And we'll see you next month with a new episode.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai