Baptist Church Funds Mizzou’s Defunded Black Student Council

A Baptist church is stepping in to fund the Legion of Black Collegians, the University of Missouri’s historic Black student council, after the university moved to cut the student governing body’s designated annual funding.

Mizzou leaders announced last month that they planned to stop official funding for the Legion of Black Collegians and at least several other minority affinity groups, starting in July, in response to a U.S. Department of Justice memo restricting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

The Rev. Howard-John Wesley, the pastor of Alfred Street Baptist Church in Virginia, told churchgoers on Sunday that “we decided we are not going to let that student organization fail to have programming.” The church helped the student council create its own 501(c)(3) to receive the funds.

Wesley said the move sends a message to the Trump administration: “When you don’t support us, we support our own.”

The Legion of Black Collegians was founded in 1968 and recognized as a student council a year later to represent Black students after Confederate flags and other racist symbols were found on Mizzou’s campus.