Black Student Union returns to City College

By Michael Burkett
the guardsman

The Black Student Union (BSU) is once again meeting Wednesdays at 4 p.m. on Ocean Campus at the Student Union upper floor.

BSU was started at City College in the late 1960s or early 1970s by Glenn Nance, first African American Studies Department chair at City College, and met until the 1990s.

It was originally called the Black Student Unification Club with sometimes upwards of 100 plus attendees. presently there are 25 – 30 students attending the weekly meetings, but hopes are that over time it will grow.

After Nance stepped down as the faculty adviser Felita Clark became the new adviser.

In the fall semester of 2014 Thea Matthews approached Aliyah Dunn-Salahudinn and Kevin Brown approached Felita Clark with an interest in starting a Black Student Union at City College.

During a casual conversation Dunn-Salahudinn and Clark were made aware of Matthews and Brown’s goal, so they put the two students in touch.

The result of that was Dunn-Salahuddin became the new faculty adviser with Matthews the new president of the BSU, Brown the Inter County Council (ICC) representative, Austin Jones vice president, and Jasmine the secretary.

The first meeting of the BSU was held on Ocean Campus at the Student Union upper floor on Sep. 3, 2014 with subsequent meetings during fall of 2014 every Wednesday at 3 p.m. and they now meet on Wednesdays at 4 p.m.

Besides the meetings on Ocean on Wednesdays BSU is active in Black Lives Matter which can be found on Facebook and Twitter. BSU also participated in the Million Man March to City Hall in December of 2014, are active with community service, support open mics for poetry, song, dance and other performances, have film screenings, as well as other political and social activism and events Dunn-Salahuddin said.

“One difficulty with any club at CCSF is consistency,” said Dunn-Salahuddin, “Will the club continue when the current officers move on to other schools?”

Dunn-Salahuddin added, “My hope is that [the] Black Student Union is here to stay. Once Thea, Kevin, and the others have moved on with their schooling and are no longer here, hopefully a new crop of students will take their place.”

Dr. Tarik Farrar speaking at a meeting of the BSU said, “It’s up to you, a new generation, to carry on the legacy of what we started.”

The BSU has formed a group on Facebook called “Ccsf Bsu”, has an email address of pwr2thappl@gmail.com and is on Twitter @CCSFBSU.