Feature: Julia Evans, Founder & President of the Black Student Union

Julia Evans, a junior communication major and the founder and president of the Black Student Union, has built a safe space for Black students on campus.

“What is now known as the Black Student Union (BSU) was [initially] the African-American Student Alliance (AASA).” Evans explained that the AASA was fairly outdated and unknown, so she accepted a suggestion from her mentor, Dr. Melencia Johnson, to “re-brand it for what the campus needed. BSU was born on Feb. 19, 2020.”

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was part of Evans’s inspiration to start the BSU. She noticed that “there [were] no other black organizations on campus that [weren’t] just for activism.”

The BSU motto: Unity Education Celebration. The weekly USCA BSU podcast is just one of BSU’s education initiatives. Each Wednesday, Jeremiah Brazzell, Kiera Walker and Teylor Alston divulge into topics both heavy and light.

The next unification initiative for the BSU is the Blessing Box from Feb. 15 - Feb. 19. In partnership with the NAACP, the Blessing Box is outside of Pacer Downs and accepts non-perishable items.

Evans reminds us that “BSU is not just an organization. It’s a community of people engaging in conversation. It’s become increasingly hard for those in the black community to speak for themselves and the array of emotions that they’re containing. I think that the [number] of people that we have not only been able to foster in our organization but the [number] of people we’ve been able to have conversations with … those bonds are never going to … be broken, the bridges that we’ve ... buil[t] are never going … to break. The relationships that we’re building are everlasting. It’s always love and respect, nothing more than that. I’m very grateful.”