Indiana University junior Andru Wright was searching for community during his sophomore year, just a year ago. Coincidentally, so were then-freshmen Joshua Jones and Alijah Poston.
The trio met at the Student Recreational Sports Center in January, where they began lifting together and sharing goals they had both in and outside of fitness. Then, the idea to form the Black Lifting Association was born.
“We start a club that centers around lifting, but it’s so much more than just lifting,” Wright said. “Lifting is a double meaning. It means lifting weights, but also lifting each other up as a community.”
A semester after the idea was formed, on Sept. 23, BLA became an official IU student organization.
While BLA is still a new organization, its leaders are already planning a variety of future events, including group lifting at the Student Recreational Sports Center and a partnership with The Pinnacle of Pursuit, a running club at IU.
Aaralyn Mills, a junior sports media student and BLA’s social media manager, said as a leader, she wants to help hybrid athletes who are both lifters and runners, especially women. Mills said she wants to help inspire women to lift weights.
She also wants to run a mock Army Fitness Test. Mills, who is a National Guard sergeant, plans to walk participants through each step of the test, which includes deadlifts, pushups and a 2-mile run.
“Some people want to join the Army in college, and I’m like, ‘Hell yeah, do it,’” Mills said. “And then some people want to see how difficult it is and see if they could meet the standards, and I think that would be great.”
Another BLA leader, senior neuroscience student Anesi Akpeokhai, is focused on fostering community outside of physical activities. Akpeokhai, Wright’s roommate, is also on the executive board for IU’s chapter of the Association of Black Psychologists.
Akpeokhai said he is planning a workshop event that would bridge the mental and physical aspects of lifting and break down the science behind mind-muscle connections, or how lifters are able to feel their muscles activated while doing certain lifts.
For Akpeokhai, leading means setting the tone that the main goal of the organization is growth.
“It’s helping to establish a community that builds upon each other, builds with each other,” Akpeokhai said. “Being a leader is being somebody that these people can turn to for not just lifting, but anything in life.”
He said having an organization like BLA on campus is important for Black students because he believes they are already in a space where they don’t see each other that often in classes or at work.
IU is a predominantly white campus, with Black students making up only 4.34% of the Bloomington campus in 2024.
“Having a space and community where people can come and just hang out, lift and just be within ourselves is very important to remind us of why we’re here, you know, why we’re pursuing higher education, so we can continue to create these spaces for us outside of college,” Akpeokhai said.
Wright echoed this sentiment and said he plans to make BLA a space where people feel that their growth matters. He said every week the organization will shout out students who accomplished something, whether that be a lift or a test they passed in class. Wright said he wants everybody to feel seen and appreciated, especially within the Black community where, in many instances, students do not feel as seen.
“We’re not put in the forefront, and it’s sad because like, you put so much work in every single day, that it’s like, a little bit of appreciation is all you need,” Wright said, adding that even small gestures like sending a kind text can go a long way. “We got to be happy in the small achievements, happy in the small steps, because small steps make big steps.”
If there is one thing Wright wants students to know about BLA, it’s that the organization goes beyond lifting. It’s about empowerment.
“Being so open to loving each other and helping each other will allow each other to see it’s all strength in numbers,” Wright said. “We’re not put on this Earth to do so by ourselves. So believe in each other and support each other, and we’ll do so much more.”
