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Our Story
Our Story
The Black Menaces was founded by Sebastian Stewart-Johnson, Nate Byrd, Kylee Shepherd, Kennethia Dorsey, and Rachel Weaver. These members of the Black Student Union at Brigham Young University began posting interviews on social media in 2022, where they'd ask their fellow students questions about race, faith, equity, social issues, and various political topics. The group was created to highlight the challenges that come with being a person of color on campus, where only 1% of 34,000 students were Black.
Since then, the Black Menaces have developed into their own media company, who travel all across the country to question, educate, highlight systemic barriers, and target subconscious and conscious biases of the people they interact with.
They ask the questions that corporate media won't.
Our Voices
Our Voices
"Everyone who has ever been anything, in the civil rights movement and all of that, was a menace to society."
~ Kylee Shepherd (founder of The Black Menaces)
"For so long, non-BIPOC people have been speaking on behalf of BIPOC people. And now we’re able to take the leadership aspect and role and have our own voices amplified about the things that are directly affecting us.ady started 10 chapters since the announcement, and students from at least 70 campuses have expressed interest in starting chapters of their own."
~ Sebastian Stewart-Johnson (founder of The Black Menaces)
"I think it’s important to remind people that we’ve come a long way, but we have so much farther to go for all races and Black students to feel comfortable in the spaces that they’re in... We still face the most horrible microaggressions and discrimination."
~ Adokor Swaniker ( San Francisco State University)
"Together, we can be a coalition of people who push for the betterment and empowerment of marginalized communities, where we are in every single state across the country, and if we need to, overnight, we can protest or rally or petition for something that is greater than any of us individually. To us, that is the most exciting thing."
~ Sebastian Stewart-Johnson (founder of The Black Menaces)
"I think ignorance is really prevalent on campus on a wide array of social issues. I really want to work toward dismantling that and, in turn, create a safe space for these marginalized communities. Our goal is to talk to as many students as possible."
~ Tanner Edwards (Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
"It’s definitely helped me step out of my comfort zone, having more deep discussions with people and dismantling stigmas."
~ Simone Brown (San Francisco State University)
"When people watch the videos, I want them to see growth. I want them to be able to see an actual change over time in the atmosphere that we’re creating here on campus and see that there will be spaces where they can feel welcome and feel like they can exist authentically in."
~ Tanner Edwards (Chapel Hill, North Carolina)
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