Unity comes with education, grace and understanding of one another. Our theme “The Great Expression: Unearthing our roots and owning our truths” is to unify the black community by teaching our true history about black people and to acknowledge and celebrate the diaspora so that we can come together as one. To overcome our stereotypes and prejudices against each other in our community we must learn to love and understand each other’s differences. That is why our theme focuses on three main points: Self love/appreciation, African/slave history, and Tributes to the diaspora.

History of Conference
The Big XII Council on Black Student Government is a regional Black Student Governing Body which consists of the Black Student Governments from institutions in the Big XII Conference. This body of student leaders assembles each academic year to continue to promote Black culture, leadership, positive self-efficacy, political power and awareness, and goodwill of the student body and Black community on the campus of each member institution. The first conference, in 1978, was hosted by the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO. This year, Iowa State University is the proud host of the 47th annual conference in Ames, IA. Iowa State last hosted the conference back in 2014.

History of Council
The council was created in 1977 when Black students from all the schools in the Big Eight Conference came together in recognition that they were suffering from similar problems at their respective institutions. The next year, the University of Missouri students formally created the Big Eight Council and Conference on Black Student Government. In 1997, the Big Eight Conference was expanded to include four Texas institutions forming the new Big XII Conference. The Big Eight Council on Black Student Government officially changed their name to the Big XII Council on Black Student Government and included the four Texas schools into the structure of the organization. Each year, an institute member of the Big XII Council on Black Student Government hosts the Annual Big XII Conference on Black Student Government.