'I continue to be the change': North high grad reflects on advocating for Black students

Editor's note: Due to early deadlines related to the Memorial Day holiday, The Herald-Times will publish photos from this weekend's high school graduations on Wednesday.

Ever since Unique Busch was little, she’s taken interest in space. She wanted to be an astronaut or at least something in the field. For a while, though, she didn’t think she could do it.

It wasn’t until she started at Bloomington High School North that she realized she could. Her freshman year, she attended a Black History Month presentation about the first African Americans to reach certain accomplishments. She learned about Mae Jemison, the first Black woman to travel into space.

“I felt like I didn’t really see as many people in the field that look like me, so I felt like it wasn’t really meant for me,” Busch said. “Until I got older and realized there’s nothing really stopping me.”

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Busch will graduate high school at 2 p.m. Saturday among 357 other students from Bloomington North. After that, she will attend Indiana University to study astronomy and astrophysics. She wants to research the viability of life on other plants, such as Mars, in the event Earth becomes inhabitable for humans.

Growing up a leader

Busch has been a leader since she was a child. At Batchelor Middle School, she helped organize a school assembly about bullying and school shootings. At North, she became heavily involved with Movement, the school’s Black culture club. Her senior year, she helped organize another school assembly, this time about microaggressions toward students of color.

She and a few other Black students spoke to the entire school about microaggressions they had experienced. Having their hair touched without permission. Being treated differently by a teacher because they were told they seemed intimidating. Hearing jokes about how they were too dark to be seen when the lights turned off in the classroom.

Busch wasn’t sure the assembly would have any lasting effect. Once it ended, though, students continually approached her — including Black students — to say they weren’t aware of all the mentioned microaggressions and wanted to work harder to be an advocate for students of color.

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“I can definitely say our school has changed from that point on,” Busch said. “I hear less outrageous stuff in the hallways because people are standing up against that and are now educated enough to understand that that’s not okay.”

As the leader of Movement, Busch helped organize discussions and presentations about Black culture every week. The club talked about police brutality and white fragility. It heard from guest speakers about redlining and the Black community’s impact on the music industry. It honored people like Mae Jemison, who helped Busch feel validated to follow her dream.

When Busch graduates, she’s excited to move onto bigger endeavors, she said. But she’ll always be proud of the work she did for students of color in the Monroe County Community School Corp.

“It really opened my eyes and made me realize that I continue to be the change and create change within the school community,” she said.

Contact Christine Stephenson at cstephenson@heraldt.com.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Bloomington High School North grad advocated for Black MCCSC students