Tag Archives: Black Education Matters Student Activist Award Winner

How Kaley Duong and Alexis Mburu Became Award-Winning Youth Activists

by Ari Robin McKenna


Kaley Duong and Alexis Mburu knew there was something wrong with school, only it took them a while to find the right words, to know how to phrase them, and to channel their innate leadership ability. In middle school, both joined racial equity clubs that began to illuminate aspects of the issues they were seeing or facing. In high school, both began speaking out more frequently, organizing, and building community around taking action to address the ills of a system they were still in. During the 2021–2022 school year — when Duong was a senior and Mburu a junior — both were unstoppable, working tirelessly for racial equity in schools while organizing, participating in, and speaking at events that impacted thousands.

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KyRi Miller, Aneesa Roidad, & Mia Dabney Win 6th Annual BEMSAA Awards

by Ari Robin McKenna


On Monday, a virtual ceremony was held to honor the 2021 Black Education Matters Student Activist Awards (BEMSAA). In addition to parents, mentors, friends, and teachers of the award winners, the event was attended by former NFL player Michael Bennet (who awarded Mia Dabney the Pennie Bennett Award), Seattle Seahawks player Bobby Wagner, former BEMSAA award winners, BEMSAA board members, and members of the media.

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Fourth-Annual National BLM at School Week of Action Kicks Off With Calls for Local Accountability

by Ari Robin McKenna

Trigger Warning: this article includes descriptions of incidents in which racist language is used.


In a student-lead briefing on Monday, Jan. 25 on Zoom, educators, parents, youth in the NAACP Youth Coalition, and members of the press convened to kick off the Black Lives Matter (BLM) at School Week of Action in Seattle. Now a national movement four years running, it all began here in the South End in 2016 when John Muir Elementary School (JMES) had to temporarily cancel plans for an assembly meant to bolster the morale of Black students. After word spread via Breitbart News Network that teachers at the district-sponsored event would be wearing Black Lives Matter t-shirts, organizers received hate mail and a bomb threat, causing them to temporarily cancel the assembly. Then, in an impressive display of Seattle solidarity with JMES, over 3,000 educators district-wide showed up to work donning “Black Lives Matter” shirts, and a movement was born.

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