The third annual Black Student Union Leadership Conference brought together African Americans all over Kansas to honor Black History Month. Many high schools attended, among them was Manhattan High. The conference lasted all day at the Kansas State Student Union last Wednesday and was filled with educational events.

“First thing we did was we went to a browsing fair,” MHS BSU president Jamera Ewing said, “which basically they had a bunch of booths set up with, like, the different things you could do at K-State and, like, the college of education, the college of liberal arts and stuff like that … and then we ate breakfast and then we did a workshop. We had lunch and then after that we went on campus tours.”

During breakfast, the keynote speaker Shaun Vandiver, head basketball coach at Emporia State University, talked about perseverance and touched on racial profiling and white privilege.

“He talked to us about just basically following your dreams,” Ewing said, “and then he talked about police brutality and an incident he had with the police and [that] some of his players have had and just basically he was saying, if you’re ever in an incident with police, like, be respectful, like, that’s the key and don’t give them a reason to, like, need to harm you or use, like, physical force so I’m really glad that he spoke to us about that.”

Four workshops were provided at the event that discussed topics regarding college, success and the black experience. K-State BSU member and sponsor of Manhattan High’s BSU Nick Wiggins taught one of the workshops, “The Key to Success,” that dealt with key concepts of identity and success.

“My workshop was about success through self-identification,” Wiggins said. “We can become more successful by knowing more of who we are. I had people write down how they identified and how they expressed their identity.”

Wiggins’ main hope was that those who attended his workshop were able to learn more about themselves, recognize the privileges and opportunities they had and see the value in themselves and take initiative.

MHS BSU member and sophomore Aza Davis-Picou enjoyed the workshop and thought it was rewarding.

“It was pretty cool,” Davis-Picou said. “We talked about identity, and I learned that it’s important to be who you are no matter what happens in your life. And no matter who tells you you can’t be who you are, you have to stay true to yourself.”

One of Ewing’s favorite parts of the whole event was the entertainment that was provided during lunch.

“The entertainment was great,” Ewing said. “They had step teams come out so Shawnee Heights [had] a step team and they also had the sororities and the fraternities step. People basically make music with their bodies like stomping and clapping.”

During the campus tour, groups were able to see the various buildings on the K-State campus. Overall, Manhattan High’s BSU members enjoyed the whole experience and the the lessons they were able to take away from the conference.

“The one thing that stuck out to me was what Nick [Wiggins] said, ‘Don’t let your circumstances or what you’ve been through determine your value,’” Ewing said, “and he did that whole experiment with the 20 dollar bill and, you know, they crumple it up and ask, ‘You still want it?’ and then you step on it, [and ask] ‘You still want it?’ And people were like, ‘Yeah, it’s $20.’ And he talked about how even though it’s been crumpled on and it’s been stepped on and smushed, it still has value. He said, ‘Don’t let the things that you go through determine how much you’re worth because you’re priceless. You are the most important person in this room.’ And that was, like, really [uplifting].”

Ewing appreciated the fact that she was able to talk with other African Americans on a personal level and have that common ground.

“We could talk about things that other people are, like, uncomfortable talking about so it was really great to see that I’m not the only one who deals with the same things,” Ewing said. “Like we all have the same struggles …  it was just great and it was so nice just to see the fellowship and all these people from different high schools. Everybody just understood each other and it was just relatable and we all [had a] connection, a foundation that we all understood. It wasn’t all black people but obviously the majority of the people were black … It was really eye-opening … I would definitely do it again.”

Although Ewing will be graduating this year, she hopes BSU can go again next year if the opportunity arises and hopes that more people can go.

“I really hope that we can get more publicity about it because I feel like a lot of people didn’t know about it and I feel like they talked about things that black people need to hear,” Ewing said. “It’s stuff that we need to know about ourselves and what we need to do in certain situations, like, the whole thing with the police. Somebody is going to deal with that, whether they’re wrong or right and they need to, like, know what to do, what not to say, what not to do. I think you gain more life skills and we got to look at it from a police’s perspective.”