The Black Student Union became a club at MHS in the 1970-71 school year. During their first year as a club, they hosted a talent show and sponsored black awareness week. Like they do today, BSU strived to serve MHS that first year and that goal has never changed.

“The purpose for the Union is to provide avenues for black students to become more organized and aware of the opportunities available to them,” said an excerpt from the 1971 Manhattan High School Blue M yearbook.

Some changes that have been made for the 2018-19 BSU group is the addition of a step dance group. Stepping is a kind of dance that uses your entire body to make rhythms by dancing. It’s a dance that brings people together.

“[In] BSU we’re all about unity and lifting every voice,” said senior Amani Rockett, a BSU member who is helping start the step group. “Stepping lets us express our unity in our group. It let’s us… promote BSU in school and… gets us back to our cultural roots.”

The members of BSU are excited to start a stepping group. Some have never had the opportunity to step, but know the cultural significance of stepping and want to try it.

“For us, stepping is kind of something that you always… grew up wanting to do,” sophomore Chalice Carter said. Carter is also helping to start the step group. “Like you look on TV and you watch all these ‘90s and early 2000s movies… like ‘Stomp the Yard’… and you’re like ‘wow, that’s so cool.’”

“Stomp the Yard” is a movie that portrays stepping in fraternities. Stepping has had a long tradition with African American fraternities and sororities.

Kansas State University BSU is one outreach in the community that Rocket and Carter hope will help with the starting of their step group.

BSU hopes to promote stepping when they perform in the second semester during a basketball game.

“I feel like a lot of people don’t know what BSU is about and what we do and how we express ourselves,” said Carter. “Stepping is going to help us spread our message to people at the school.”