By Larryse Brown

The Black Student Union of Mercy College hosted its first event of the year last semester, as Mercy students showed off their talent.

For an admissions fee of $5, students and faculty, watched BSU’s first talent show featured 27 acts of rapping, poetry, singing and stepping.

In total, the event raised $900. Pleased with the initial event, the president of BSU Keyona Rogers said, “It was a major success.”

Since 2008, Rogers has been apart of BSU and promises that this semester be the time the club gains popularity with the student body. It needed to start with an event grabbed the attention of the students.

“A talent show was the first thing I thought of because I felt like there were never really any shows for the students to express their talent. It turned out to be a well mixed group of entertainment,” says Rogers.

Britney Collins, senior at Mercy, was selected as host for the event whose job required outfit changes and creating skits to keep the audience entertained. For Collins, who calls herself an “artistic” person, playing the leading lady was “exciting” and BSU choosing her to host the event was an “easy pick.”

“It’s not difficult when you have a personality like me,” gloats Collins. “It was especially fun when I got to put on my freak-um dresses because people aren’t use to seeing me dressed up.”

The talent show that featured Mercy’s own ‘Latin Explosion’, dance team ‘Intensified Image’, and Mercy’s step team ‘Show no Mercy’, made a profit that Roger credits to the onslaught of last minute students who showed up. By the end of the night BSU was able to raise enough money to give 25 percent of it the Light the Way foundation, a youth center for children in urban areas without the funding for books and computers.

Although profitable, Rogers proclaims the event was not without its challenges. Nasheed Ramos, event coordinator, said some of those challenges included managing behind the scenes and getting on the same page with BSU’s faculty leader, Terrance Jackson.

“Terrance really pushed us in teaching us not to limit ourselves. It gave us the opportunity to practice real leadership”.

As far as favorite performances go, Rogers concludes “all of them were good but I especially enjoyed the step team and the dance team.”

Jasmine Blount, captain of Mercy’s dance team Intensified Image, has performed for mostly BSU sponsored events. While it was a practiced routine to songs by artist Kanye West, Lady GaGa and Chris Brown it didn’t hinder the performance as one of the favorites among the students.

“It was a bit of a challenge getting a group of 18 people on a small space like the stage of the lecture hall, but I love what BSU stands for so I was happy to do it,” says Blount.

At the beginning of each weekly meeting, Black Student Union opens up with a piece of African American history, apart of its plan to expand includes knowledge about African- Americans.

“It’s better to get where were going if we know where we’ve been,” declared event coordinator Ramos.

When asked about the future of BSU, Ramos predicts success based on “good leadership.” BSU looks to those in charge this semester including the President, faculty and executive board to open doors for the union to grow. The obstacles that BSU has faced in the past Rogers says has come to “make the union stronger” and as long as BSU maintains the three F’s: fellowship, following and being faithful, it has been said that they could only progress.

“This event is only the very beginning,” added Rogers.