In the Beginning

The Black United Students (BUS) was first organized on May 21, 1968 and was instrumental in establishing the University's Learning Development Program (1968), which is now administered by the Office of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs, the Institute for African American Affairs (1969), the Center of Pan-African Culture (1972), and the Department of Pan-African Studies (1976). The establishment of these campus institutions was the direct result of 95 percent of the University's African student body walking off the campus in protest of the racist treatment they were receiving and the absence of educational support programs. In keeping with its institutional change objectives, BUS was also the motive force behind the dedication of the "Old Student Union" in honor of Dr. Oscar W. Ritchie in 1977. Worthy of note here is the fact that BUS was founded with the unified action of all the fraternities and sororities on the campus. For example, Larry Simpson, BUS's first president, was an active member of Kappa Alpha Psi. Membership in the Black United Students was and still is open to all students at Kent State University who are willing to struggle for the educational, cultural, political, and social advancement of African peoples throughout the world. 

Organizational Strengths

The Executive Board of the Black United Students from the beginning consisted of two executive officers: the President and the Executive Secretary and six Ministers: Grievance, Culture, Social, Information, Education and Economics. These Officers were the equivalents of the current Executive Board structure with some minor differences: President, Vice President, Executive Secretary, and Treasurer and six Standing Committee Chairs: Programmer, African Affairs, Community Affairs, Political Affairs and Grievances, Academic Affairs, and Publicity. If there were any discernible difference at all it derived from BUS's early attempt to imitate the structure of the Black Panther Party. Never the less, during the 1980s, the leadership of BUS controlled a budget in excess of $50,000, not counting the funds awarded other black student organizations. From 1970 to 1976, the organization'a formative years, Wiley Smith III was BUS's advisor.

BUS's male and female leadership demonstrated over a period of three decades a seriousness, commitment and dedication to duty not expected in young people. In keeping with the educational mandate passed to the Institute for African American Affairs (IAAA) and later to DPAS by the Black United Students, there was developed a set of Operational Imperatives. These  imperatives were designed to maintain a viable academic, cultural, social and administrative working relationship between  this student organization and DPAS. This working relationship encompassed all aspects of the Department's curricular divisions, programs, and activities which directly impact student concerns. To effect the orderly implementation of the relationship between BUS and DPAS, the president of BUS, or his/her designate, has been authorized to attend all faculty and staff and Curriculum Committee meetings, or special purpose meetings whose deliberations warrant student input. In the fall, the Department hosts orientation or transition workshops for the newly installed officers of BUS. 

The Department, for obvious reasons, supports the underlying philosophy of the Black United Students which is to serve and unify all the black students at Kent State University by addressing their needs. BUS seeks to identify relevant issues and initiate appropriate action, whenever and wherever necessary, in order to either reduce or eliminate any impediments found to be adverse to the continued well-being, matriculation, and graduation of African American students. Social, cultural, and educational programs, activities and ideas have been generated that relate to the past, present, and future goals and aspirations of African people for this express purpose. 

Organizational Accomplishments

BUS has remained consistent in the provision of enriching experiences and assuring the continuing development of a progressive environment which is conducive to encouraging success among black students in their quest to obtain a quality and meaningful education. The annual Renaissance Ball and Ebony Achievement Awards ceremony attest to this. No where is this more evident than the work BUS did to increase the numbers of black undergraduate and graduate students enrolled but also the numbers of black faculty and staff hired at the University. It must also be recognized and indeed celebrated that, when BUS argued for the creation of the Institute and the Department, they were ultimately creating jobs for 47 full- and part-time individuals — white and black students and faculty and staff. At least this was the number of faculty and staff DPAS hired in 1994. Taken a step further, they were creating jobs for eminently larger numbers of African Americans on the Kent State University campus at large. 

The Black United Students have been, as pointed out earlier, the initiators of the process that created not only the Department's academic programs and jobs but also several institutions and programs on the campus, for no other organization, including the Undergraduate Student Senate, has created an academic department, a learning development program, BUS Line — a dormitory security force now a part of  Residence Service's Campus Security. What is singularly remarkable is that all of these BUS-initiated programs have remained viable for twenty or thirty years. Having done so, BUS has become a standout among all student organizations on this campus and in  the nation at large for that matter. 

Publications and Community Programming

BUS published in 1969-70 a monthly newspaper, Black Watch and had a publication committee thatwas advised by Wiley Smith III. This publication began as a mimeographed newssheet in 1969 and evolved into a standard newspaper when the IAAA decided to fund it. However, President Robert I. White threatened Dr. E. W. Crosby with House Bill 1219 in September, 1970. This was a law passed by the Ohio State Legislature to suppress student and faculty activism on state university campuses; it is still enforceable today. Black Watch, therefore, ceased its publication with DPAS funds and reverted to a mimeographed newssheet. In 1978 or '79, BUS initiated another publication Spectrum which enjoyed more secure and, in University terms, legitimate funding from the Student Publications Policy Committee. At first Spectrum was published in newspaper format similar to Black Watch. In 1985 Spectrum's layout changed to that of a magazine with slick cover and all and continued publishing until UHURU Magazine supplanted it in 1989. It, too, is published each fall and spring semester. This student journal became UHURU under the editorial leadership of Kecia E. Cole in 1989. As a direct result of Kecia's labors and the labors and especially those editors of publications which succeed UHURU, this student publication history has not, to my knowledge, been replicated in its professionalism or longevity of more than 30 years on many University or college campuses throughout the nation.

Editors of Black United Students' Publications, 1969 to 1998

A Performance Record Par Excellence

Indeed as mentioned earlier on, BUS itself is a national standout. The leaders of this student organization — past and present — have outperformed their African elders on this and many other campuses. For they have refused to be passive participants in this educational journey. They have dared to think and make happen. BUS leaders have been, therefore, living tributes to the ancestors whose shoulders they stood on and sprang upward from. The Department must out of due deference continue to consider itself in league with these students and strive unrelentingly to keep the above stated facts alive in the minds of new generations of University administrators, African American students generally, other students, faculty, and staff.