Black Union gets involved in GNHS community

Black Union plans to collaborate with different clubs in Grayslake North and around the community, which they are planning throughout the school year. BU is collaborating with different clubs to get more involved in the GNHS community.

 This club is to bring together all of the student body that is interested in social justice issues or different things to celebrate the Black culture.

“The most exciting thing BU has done is different collaborative things with other clubs. Being collaborative and helping with different things where we have joined with them with Dare Be You and you know putting on different events also over the pandemic. An exciting thing was the Lake County BU Initiative, where a different Black Student Union from like Warren and Round Lake and Libertyville all got on a Zoom call. I think it was either once every two weeks, something like that. And we kind of collaborated across districts,” said sponsor Dawn Deacon.

 Everything the Black Union does is student lead, which means that the sponsors really take into consideration what the members think is important in the GNHS community involving the Black student body.

“It’s a student activity, a club for all students, but support particularly our Black students celebrating Black excellence. And we’re certainly open to anyone and all allies to come and be a part of the work and the fun that we’re having together on Wednesdays after school in A154. It’s a really a student-led organization where we as sponsors want to make sure that we’re creating space for our students to do what they think is most important in the short term,” said sponsor Joe Alger. 

Black Union focused on doing some different things with a number of different clubs in the school. One of the main clubs they are pairing with is Latinos Stand Up (LSU).

We’ve been focusing on pairing with LSU and speaking more about the school-wide issues,” said member Sydney Grant.