Soul Food: Celebrating Black History Month
To celebrate Black History Month, Utah State University’s Black Student Union collaborated with the Center for Community to host Soul Food 2025, Black Wall Street earlier this month.
The event featured a free market event in the TSC International Lounge, followed by a dinner and performance in the Evan N. Stevenson Ballroom in the TSC.
Ta’Mariah Jenkins, BSU president, said the free market event consisted of community businesses and USU organizations wanting to promote themselves to the student body.
“They also wanted to show students that they care about the community,” Jenkins said. “Black Student Union cares about the community, and this event is a way for us to showcase it.”
Jasmine Kemp, BSU vice president, said the accompanying dinner and performance was meant to help educate and engage the community.
“We had singers and dancers performing, as well as someone teaching step,” Kemp said. “We also taught them about the history of step and had a speaker who talked about Black Wall Street and the history behind it.”
The menu for dinner was soul food, a cuisine developed by African Americans in the American South with deep ties to history, tradition and resilience.
Jambalaya and mac and cheese being served at BSU’S Soul Food event on Feb. 15, 2025.
“We decided to just have basic soul food,” Jenkins said. “Jambalaya with mac and cheese, cornbread muffins with butter, peach cobbler with whipped cream, pink lemonade and water.”
Jenkins said BSU hosts the event every year.
“The Soul Food event is just a way for us to experience Black culture, excellence and investment, as well as to share it with others every year,” Jenkins said.
Kemp said the event is also a celebration of Black History Month aimed to bring students together.
“We just want to create a community here at USU and connect with the community outside of school,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins said this year’s theme for the event was inspired by Black Wall Street.
“Within the last year, I went to Tulsa, Oklahoma on a trip for an organization,” Jenkins said. “After going to Tulsa and seeing Black Wall Street, I wanted to bring that back to the community and show it to Utah.”
Kemp said the focus on educating students and the community this year, and they felt Black Wall Street was a good option.
“We want to educate the students about a topic that they may not know, as well as just create a community for everybody,” Kemp said. “We wanted them to have a good time and eat good food while learning about some cool stuff.”
Jenkins said BSU went through some struggles while planning the event due to HB261, more commonly known as the anti-DEI bill.
“The anti-DEI bill basically states that DEI can’t be practiced within the USU institution. In doing so, it affects our funding and where we get things — how things are produced for us — things like that,” Jenkins said. “Even though there have been setbacks with the anti-DEI Bill, we’ve gotten a lot of support from the Center for Community, USU Athletics and other large groups of people who still want to celebrate Black culture within the USU community.”
To get involved with BSU, students can reach out to the club’s email address blackstudentunion.usu@gmail.com or their Instagram account @ususa.bsu.