Students and administrators at Mount Greylock Regional School District established a Black Student Union (BSU) ­at the high school last month. Members of the College’s BSU — including BSU co-President Xavier Wills ’27 and BSU Frosh Reps Taahira Garnes ’28 and Lulu Tetteh ’28 — helped guide the planning process and now facilitate meetings of the new group, which is titled “BSU + Allies.”

The group held its first meeting on Nov. 18 and will continue to meet weekly at Mount Greylock Regional High School (MGRHS). Members of the College’s BSU and Tommy Verdell, associate athletic director for inclusion and compliance at the College, collaborate to host the meetings. 

Wills, one of the student facilitators, wrote in an email to the Record that the purpose of the group is to create an affinity space for Black students at MGRHS, where African American students made up just 2.7 percent of the student body in the 2023–24 school year, according to data from the Massachusetts Department of Education. “For Black children, especially those attending predominantly white institutions in mostly white areas … harms are magnified,” Wills wrote. “[The BSU] provides a safe environment to discuss the layers of anti-Black harm [students] may face both inside and outside the school.”

“Most importantly, it offers a place where their Blackness is centered and celebrated — not as something to endure, but as a blessing and a gift, worthy of pride and care, instead of a marker of systemic marginalization,” he added.

“We had originally envisioned it as a group just for students of African heritage, but it has morphed into BSU plus allies,”  MGRHS Library Media Specialist Liza Barrett explained. “That has been working out really well, and the students are on board.”

Ash Steward, a senior at MGRHS and a member of the club, said that she’s grateful to have a dedicated space for Black students and allies. “We can have discussions that are more specific and harder to have in a larger space,” she said. 

About 15 students attend each meeting, according to Wills. Barrett, who described herself and Assistant Director of Middle and High School Outreach at the College Tara Olney as the “connectors” responsible for getting the group off the ground, told the Record that she was heartened by the turnout. “I was just praying that two or three people would come to the first one,” she said. “But then 15 people came, and my heart was singing. I was so happy … and all the kids who came to the first one have come back.” 

MGRHS sophomore Lukas Burrow, who is a member of the club, said that he is grateful for the community the group provides. “It’s like a little family, which is awesome because sometimes it doesn’t feel like there’s a place for me to talk to somebody,” he said. “I think the BSU is a perfect place for that.”

Barrett began working on the initiative last spring after meeting with the school’s principal, Jacob Schutz, and the mother of a Black student at MGRHS. “She said, ‘I just wish there was a place for my son to talk to peers who experience the same things he does,’” Barrett said. “It’s not always easy to be a student of color in a school that’s predominantly white.”

Barrett is also the site-based coordinator for the Williams Center at Mt. Greylock, a program that coordinates co-curricular initiatives between the College and the high school. She said she immediately thought to ask students at the College to assist with the creation of the BSU, an idea she then pitched to MGRHS staff. “[MGRHS] students really enjoy getting to work with Williams students and the mentorship they offer,” she said. “The superintendent and principal were 100 percent supportive.” 

This fall, Barrett and Wills, who previously served as a tutor at MGRHS, began working with the Center for Learning in Action to secure funding and establishing meeting guidelines based on his experience with the College’s BSU. Wills recruited BSU Frosh Reps Taahira Garnes ’28 and Lulu Tetteh ’28 to help facilitate weekly meetings.

Wills explained that while the BSU at MGRHS is not officially affiliated with the one at the College, he deliberately chose other members of the College’s BSU to join him as facilitators. “There is just a lot of intentional overlap,” he wrote.

Wills, Garnes, Tetteh, and Verdell will attend future meetings to provide guidance and support for MGRHS students. Wills said that they hope to serve as mentors for the students, many of whom are likely participating in a BSU for the first time. “We made a joint presentation detailing the history of the College’s BSU and asked them to reflect on that and actualize what they wanted to show up in their iteration of the BSU,” he wrote of the group’s first meeting.

Barrett said that the students in the BSU at MGRHS have decided to focus on both facilitating internal discussions and raising cultural awareness within the broader MGRHS community. “[We want] space for them, specifically, to talk and share their experiences and … also do outreach cultural awareness events for the community,” she explained.

MGRHS senior Ian Fredette echoed his peers’ support for the group. “BSU helps us all come together and work for a common, greater cause,” he said. “I see a lot of students, especially at this school, who are struggling and need to have an outlet, and BSU provides that for them.”