On Saturday, Feb. 24, local middle and high school students settled into the classrooms of Pomona College for a day of learning, empowerment and celebration. At Pomona’s Black Student Union’s (BSU) second Black Youth Conference, young participants and their parents found a space to connect with college students and celebrate Black culture.
The conference began at Pomona’s Edmunds Ballroom, where the students and their families gathered to hear from President Gabrielle Starr. This was followed by a panel discussion from members of the BSU about their college experiences.
During the discussion, Haddi Sise PO ’25 spoke about her experience as a minority student at a predominantly white institution (PWI). Originally from Washington, a state with a majority white population of 66.5 percent, Sise explained that she experienced a similar racial dynamic during high school.
However, despite the statistical similarity, Sise described her experience at Pomona as being substantially different from that at her high school, noting the community she has found with her peers.
“Even though it’s still a PWI, Black people tend to gravitate more towards each other, especially being away from home,” Sise said. “It’s kind of like you build your own little family on campus. Whenever you see other Black people, you say hello.”
After the panel, the students and their parents split up to participate in a series of educational and reflection-based workshops. The students moved to the second floor of Pomona’s Smith Campus Center (SCC) and rotated in groups of about 12, participating in student-led workshops that included topics such as “What is Black Wealth?,” “Self Care Your Way” and “Good Days: Black Joy & Resistance.”
The workshop titled “What is Black Wealth?” empowered students to discuss and reflect on the definition of wealth. The students went around the room sharing their own definitions, prompted by facilitators to look beyond wealth’s literal meaning and to instead interact with it as something abstract and individually defined.
In the next room over, another group of students listened to a presentation curated by BSU members and worked together to discuss what self-care meant for them. They reflected on the times that they typically feel the most stressed and discussed possible root causes of that stress, imagining how they might apply their personal self-care techniques to those moments in the future.
For the volunteers leading these workshops, the conference signified a moment of giving back to the community. Yafae Cotton PO ’26 explained how rewarding he found interacting with the students to be.
“Just seeing all the kids smiling, just people talking about why they’re passionate about what they’re doing and just people expressing the importance of Black joy,” he said, sharing his favorite part about the conference. “I’m just happy to be here and happy to be able to help.”
Werlie Cius PO ’26, a student organizer from the Draper Center, was similarly enthusiastic about the workshops.
“[Participants] really loved getting a perspective from college students and the workshops were very helpful and meaningful,” she said.“The hope is that, as things keep going, we can have [the conference] annually and just bring more and more generations of students to campus.”
As students and volunteers participated in these workshops, families sat in Rose Hills Theatre for a talk about students’ mental health by Dr. Adrienne Hilliard, a long-term advocate for diversity and inclusion and physiologist at Student Health Services.
Hilliard began her presentation by revealing common challenges surrounding mental health in the Black community, citing the negative perception of mental illness and the reluctance of some individuals to seek professional help. She then provided advice for how parents could best support their children through some of these challenges during their teenage years.
One parent, Pritina Irvin-Smartt, who is also Pomona’s assistant director of the Office of Alumni and Family Engagement, talked about the opportunity that this conference and its workshops provided for her and her family, noting its positive impact.
“This event is significant to our family because the school that our boys go to, they don’t have a lot of access to conversations about college, especially about college from other Black students or Black teachers,” she said.
Afterward, participants at the conference moved to the SCC Courtyard, where various organizations had come to share their missions and resources. These organizations included Conceptual Art Therapy, Pomona African American Advisory Alliance, African American Museum of New Beginnings, National Council of Negro Women, Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. and the Sickle Cell Disease Foundation.
Protagonist Black, a pop-up bookstore, was also present. The booth provided a variety of books to purchase during the event, ranging from adult nonfiction literature to children’s picture books. Aysia and Kevin Brown, the store’s founders, explained that the store aims to uplift Black authors and counter-current failings in POC literary representation.
“There are so many stories about our culture and other BIPOC identities that don’t get the spotlight they deserve [and] don’t get the shelf space they deserve,” Aysia Brown said. “We want kids and youth and young adults and even grown-ups to have the opportunity to see themselves in the books that are here, in ways that we don’t always have an opportunity to.”
The day ended with a special performance by Earthtones, the 5Cs’ first all-Black a cappella group, followed by the keynote address by Ashley Land PO ’16. Land is an influencer, producer and activist, with a special interest in topics such as politics, pop culture, the economy and the fight for Black language, which she discusses on her YouTube and social media platforms.
In her address, Land reflected on the success of the conference.
“I love being able to go around and capture moments of pure joy, people eating some good food like we did earlier, dancing around, just being happy,” she said.
She also spoke about her aspirations and the foundation that she found in the Black community at home in Chicago as well as at Pomona. She emphasized the importance of leaning on this support system and encouraged youth at the conference to do the same.
“When times are tough, life is always going to bring challenges, disappointments, losses and unexpected difficulties,” she said. “Sitting in the hard times is not what helps us keep moving forward as individuals or as a piece of community; it’s when we come together that great things happen. Black joy is not just a necessity, but [also] an act of resistance.”
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