On Saturday, Sept. 19, 2020, the Black Student Union hosted the Concrete Souls event. The event was dedicated to helping those in the University of Wisconsin-Platteville community learn more about the black community and shine a light on black lives lost to police brutality.
Numerous events over the summer pushed discussion of systemic racism to the fore concerning the justice climate, with the Black Lives Matter protests and more shared stories of police brutality. This event allowed the black community members to speak to the students here and helped them to learn from people in their everyday lives, not just social media.
In an interview BSU president, Bassirou B. Touré gave insight to how the event turned out and what the BSU is.
“A lot of people came and were able to share and those that did come, I believe we got the message across,” said Touré. “The main purpose of the event was to give the campus community an opportunity to respond about everything that is going on in our justice climate in the country, and brought up to the light of what the black community faces.”
This event is only one of the many things this organization does.
The BSU mission is to nullify stereotypes around the black community and to have an open space for the black community here on campus. BSU aims to highlight “everything that goes into the black community and what the black students here face on a day to day, since this is a primarily white institution,” said Touré.
The BSU holds biweekly meetings and usually plan one big event every month. Everyone on campus is free to come to the events and meetings to gain knowledge and “to join the conversation.”
But the big question is: what are the future plans for the BSU?
Touré answered, “Everything is unclear. The BSU executive board and I came up with a plan for different events but 2 to 3 weeks before the semester, a lot of changes were brought up due to COVID. So things are uncertain, but we do have an annual event we want to hold and are looking at alternatives to how it will look.”
Touré went on to confirm that the annual Every Weekend conference would be happening. Once the details of the event are finalized, there will be more information on the BSU Facebook page and the Pioneer Link page.