BSU commands respect at Santa Rosa JC

Santa Rosa Junior College’s first Black Student Union was formed in the early 1970s by students demanding an African American studies program. Although the program now exists, the group fizzled out over time.

Two years ago, students Mark Goitom, 25, and Damion Square, 28, started a new club. Members quickly made their mark by raising nearly $17,000 in seven months to build a school for more than 125 students in Tanzania.

The club’s service project, half funded by weekly bake sales, was an unprecedented feat, said Brian D. Phifer, BSU faculty adviser and SRJC assistant director of student affairs.

“It was pure grassroots,” Phifer said. “I’d never seen anything like that before.”

Among the donations was a $100 check and hand-written letter of congratulations from Brook “Red” Tauzer, an SRJC professor of history from 1955 to 1986 and former vice president of academic affairs.

The group has gone on to organize public forums about cultural identity, low-performing schools, police brutality and global white supremacy, featuring famous speakers such as civil rights attorney John Burris, NAACP President the Rev. Ann Gray Byrd and UC Berkeley African American studies professor Rickey Vincent.

And during this academic year, it helped to inaugurate the SRJC Umoja Community, an enrichment program affiliated with other California college groups. It emphasizes course material that empowers at-risk African diaspora students and connects high school students with college mentors.

“BSU has been like the catalyst for this particular group,” Phifer said. “It actually started to birth into having a learning community that supports African and African-American student success here at Santa Rosa Junior College.”

Co-founders Square and Goitom met Feb. 22, 2012, at an on-campus event that featured Willie Brown, former speaker of the California State Assembly. Square asked Brown a question, and Goitom, who had struggled for months to find someone with whom to launch the BSU, immediately recognized a peer with passion and leadership potential.

Square, a theater major from a military family, said moving often and experiencing different cultures fed his naturally inquisitive mind.

“I just didn’t ever take things for face value,” he said. “I always wanted to question things and see the deeper meaning behind things.”

Goitom is a second-generation Eritrean immigrant, nursing major and former SRJC student trustee. In high school, he began to research the famous black figures mentioned in rapper Tupac’s lyrics and started wearing shirts that depicted political activists Huey P. Newton and Marcus Garvey. He asked his teachers why those men were not included in the curriculum.

“The more you learn, the more you ask those questions,” Goitom said.

Inspired by the political schools founded by revolutionary movements such as the Black Panther Party, the BSU established its own, inviting speakers such as the Rev. Byrd and professors Michael Hale, April Harris and Andre Larue to lecture on the weekends.

“We use this opportunity to educate ourselves on the real history,” said Elias Hinit, 21, co-president and sociology major. “We’re not getting it from our schools, we’re not getting it from the media, so we call in professionals.”

The group also invites students from the Black Student Union clubs it has helped found at Santa Rosa, Piner and Ridgway Continuation high schools.

Senai Debesay, 19, who moved from Sudan two years ago and joined the BSU a year ago, said the club piqued his curiosity to do more research on his own.

“Before I joined this club, I thought racism would be over, but hearing Damion, I started questioning politics and (white) supremacy,” he said.

Derika Ramsey, 18, said her curiosity began by skimming through her mother’s black history books, noticing her surroundings and asking herself why racism still existed.

“When I joined this club about a year ago, I heard (Damion) talking, and it was really inspiring,” she said. “I just wanted to get more into activism and branch out.”

The BSU holds joint meetings with Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanista de Aztlan de SRJC, another student group that promotes higher education.

“There’s a strength in numbers, which is why they meet together,” said Lenita Marie Johnson, an executive assistant for the Umoja Community. “It sets them apart from other groups in other schools. You have the Latino students and the black students regularly, every other week, meeting together.”

Square said the collaboration came naturally.

“We are all people of color who are facing the same struggle as students, as men, as women, as children, as a collective,” he said. “With that shared experience, we have shared ideas. It was like, ‘Hey, how about we team up, use our collective powers to put out something real positive?’”

The diverse backgrounds of BSU members are an advantage, Phifer said.

“Different people bring different ideas. So if you have that kind of diversity amongst a group, they have a diversity in thinking as well. It’s also a strong statement about the diversity of the students here and the unity between the students of color.

“We’re just blessed that we have a group like that,” he said. “All of them are sharp, bright, very articulate. They’re very good communicators and organizers.”

After the Michael Brown ruling on Nov. 24, 2014, the BSU took nonviolent direct action in the library. Club members returned to the cafeteria a week later with posters and received a standing ovation.

“A lot of people think this generation is apathetic, but? it’s not,” Phifer said. “That was a clear sign. Their peers actually stood up and started clapping.”

“They commanded respect,” said Umoja coordinator Lenita Marie Johnson. “In a respectful way, they commanded respect.”

A free conference sponsored by the BSU and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanista has been scheduled for 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. April 25 in the SRJC Bertolini Student Center. Registration is now open for the event that will advocate higher education and political involvement. For more information, visit srjcmecha.org.