One by one several of the main characters of what many consider the best representation of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in television history made their way into the Marcus Bar & Grille on Wednesday night.
Jasmine Guy, Kadeem Hardison, Cree Summer, Dawnn Lewis, Darryl M. Bell, Charnele Brown and Glynn Turman were at the Old Fourth Ward restaurant for a tip-off dinner for a national HBCU tour in honor of the impact that iconic NBC television series, “A Different World” had on generations of Black youth.
For many people, Black or not, “A Different World” and the fictional Hillman College was their first look at an HBCU campus, and most importantly, the culture, sound, and feel of an HBCU.
The first stop on the “A Different World HBCU College Tour”, which is presented by Cisco and sponsored by Wells Fargo, is in Atlanta and begins Thursday night in the Atlanta University Center. The cast will meet with students, faculty and guests from Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Spelman College. The 10-stop tour will then move on to the nation’s capital at Howard University, and to Alabama at both Alabama State University and Tuskegee University in April. The remainder of the tour stops and dates will be announced at a later date, according to the tour’s Instagram page and website.
The first episode of the show, which was created by Bill Cosby and producers Susan Fales and Debbie Allen, aired on September 24, 1987. Asked what the show’s legacy, impact on HBCUs, and this tour mean to him and the rest of the cast, Bell, who played Ron Johnson on the show, said it meant a lot.
“It means everything to us. We’ve spent the better part of 35 years as the preeminent representation for HBCUs in film and television,” Bell said. “The number of engineers, lawyers, doctors, HBCU presidents that have come up to us and said, ‘I am who I am today because I went to an HBCU and watched “A Different World”. It’s what matters.”
The cast and the show remain synonymous with HBCUs decades after airing its final episode on July 9, 1993. Bell acknowledged that impact and seemingly timeless connection with people that weren’t even born when the show came on the air or went off the air.
“For us to have the opportunity to carry that message to the next generation, it’s a blessing,” said Bell. “We want to get to as many schools as we can. That’s why we all do it.”
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