The Black Student Union (University of Michigan) records document the various activities of the Black Student Union at U-M. Materials in this collection include agendas, budgets, correspondence, event flyers, minutes, officer reports, photographs, topical files, Twitter posts, and audio/visual recordings.
The Black Student Union (BSU) was established at the University of Michigan in the spring of 1968. In the aftermath of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the BSU led a protest that took over the administration building (now the LSA Building) on April 9, 1968. During the lockout, the students demanded more support and more Black faculty hires.
The BSU was heavily involved in the coalition that formed the three Black Action Movement (BAM) campaigns in 1970, 1975, and 1987. In 1970, the BAM protested for increased resources and services for minority students, additional minority faculty, and a goal of achieving 10% enrollment of Black students by 1973. The protest led to the creation of the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, renamed in 2011 and now known as the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies. Subsequent BAM protests focused on similar goals. The 1987 BAM protest influenced U-M President James Duderstadt's Michigan Mandate, a plan to increase Black, African American, and other minority student enrollment.
In 2000, the BSU collaborated with the Students of Color Coalition to protest the Michigamua secret society's use of offensive depictions of Native Americans during a 37-day sit-in in the tower of the Michigan Union. The protest led to Michigamua renouncing the use of pseudo-Native American practices, and ultimately the reorganization of the group as the Order of Angell.
From 2002 to 2006, the BSU produced The Black Book, a yearbook celebrating Black life on campus and the accomplishments of the Black community.
In 2013, in response to rising racial tensions nationally and following several incidents at the University, the BSU launched the #BBUM campaign on social media. The initiative invited students to speak out on their experiences "Being Black at the University of Michigan." The campaign garnered national media attention and inspired similar movements at other universities. In January 2014, the BSU issued a list of demands to the University of Michigan administration which included increased funding, renewed efforts to increase the number of Black students on campus, increased access to documents within the Bentley Historical Library, and establishing a new Central Campus facility for the Trotter Multicultural Center. The Bentley digitized and made accessible the Black Action Movement documents in 2014. This was part of a larger project to digitize the collection of the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, which was completed by 2018. In 2019, the new Trotter Multicultural Center opened its doors on Central Campus.
