Designing Their Own Black Future

By Jey Ehrenhalt, Teaching Tolerance

How black students in a predominately white town are using their voices to lift their community.

Just a few weeks after River Ridge High School approved the new black student union (BSU) as an official club, a few members came into a meeting with something to share: a flier advertising a white student union at the school. The club for white students would turn out to be a prank, but it was precisely the type of rhetoric that had inspired them to start the BSU in the first place.

Several months earlier, students had approached art teacher Christie Tran with fear and anxiety in the wake of the divisive 2016 campaign. Already used to gathering in her room—“all the time, before school, after school, during lunches,” she recalls—they had built a rapport of trust together. They shared their thoughts openly with her, their fears that the campaign’s rhetoric was inciting more violence toward black and brown people. With heavy hearts, they wanted to take collective action.

River Ridge is located in Lacey, Washington. Just under 7 percent of the school’s students are black, and 74 percent of Lacey residents are white. Consequently, black students do not get to see a lot of representation at school. The students who gathered in Tran’s room had a problem with this. They knew Tran had co-founded the school’s multicultural club, so they asked if she wanted to collaborate. She agreed, and after a few months, they decided to form a black student union…

The group’s constitution outlines its mission and philosophy, which features five key pillars: education, outreach, representation, civic engagement and economic empowerment.

Education First and Foremost

Tran says students began by expressing a strong desire to learn more about their own histories, cultures and communities. “It goes back to honoring these kids,” she reflects. “We wanted to teach it in a way that honors [students] and doesn’t make them ashamed or embarrassed about their history…”

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