Morehouse College football coach Gerard Wilcher vividly remembers his college recruitment visits in Atlanta in the spring of 1987.
When Wilcher arrived at Clark Atlanta University he saw a camera crew filming and eagerly offered to be an extra. At Morehouse, students took the recruit to a local KFC that Wilcher would see nearly a year later in director Spike Lee’s movie School Daze.
Though he didn’t make the final cut of the film, seeing students at a historically Black college featured in a movie is something the Chicago native couldn’t envision before his trip to Georgia.
“It was insane [and] unreal. When you’re 17, 18, 19, you don’t understand the magnitude of stuff like that. There was this little movie we didn’t even know what it was going to be called, but it became, like, a cult classic,” Wilcher told Andscape. “So you just don’t understand the magnitude of some stuff.
“When I was in high school. I really didn’t know about HBCUs. I didn’t know about HBCUs until Morehouse showed up. I didn’t understand the relevance, and nobody explained the differences [between] the schools to me.”
School Daze and the television sitcom A Different World, which showcased life at fictional Hillman College, were two of the few mainstream representations of Black college life in the late 1980s and 1990s. Now, more than three decades after each premiered – School Daze is currently celebrating its 35th anniversary year and A Different World marked its 36th anniversary on Sept. 24 – the legacy of the film and TV show still resonates with the cast members, and HBCU administrators.
Actors Darryl Bell, Jasmine Guy and Kadeem Hardison, who participated in both projects, still travel to historically Black colleges and universities across the country to discuss the cultural significance of the film and TV show. The trio traveled to the Toyota HBCU NY Classic on Sept. 14 to talk about A Different World and School Daze, and they also will appear on a panel Thursday at Elizabeth City State University as part of the college’s slate of events for its homecoming, which is themed Vikings Unleashed: A Different World. Jackson State University’s 2022 homecoming theme, “It’s a Different World, was a tribute to the sitcom as well.
Despite filming School Daze before shooting A Different World, the television series was aired first. At the time, none of the actors knew the influence both projects would have on generations of Black students.
“Spike told us when we did School Daze that this was a historic moment. I remember Jesse Jackson dedicated the film before I started filming. I said, in my mind, how do you know something is historical until time has passed,” said Guy, who portrayed Whitley Gilbert on A Different World and Dina in School Daze.
Bell, who portrayed Ron Johnson on A Different World, remembers the moment he realized the potential significance of the show.
“The night after it premiered the production assistant got the ratings and ran across the stage,” he said. “We were the No. 2 show on television. I knew then it was going to be special.”
The sitcom’s lasting impact is why cast members are happy to visit so many HBCUs, he said.
“That’s the greatest part of our legacy with A Different World, that not a day goes by that one of us doesn’t have someone come up and say to us, I’m an engineer [or] a doctor because I watched A Different World. I’m an HBCU president because I watched A Different World,” Bell said. “Someone will always say to us how they impacted our lives. It’s why this show remains so relevant, because it keeps creating generations of fans and encouraging young, particularly folks of color, to go to school and get an education.”
A Different World ran for six seasons on NBC. Hardison, who portrayed Dwayne Wayne on A Different World and Da Fella Edge in School Daze, learned about the importance of higher education and HBCUs through both roles.
“I didn’t know about HBCUs until I met Spike, and I still didn’t really understand what it was,” Hardison said. “Then once we started doing A Different World and [producer and director] Debbie [Allen] came on, then I started to feel, like, OK. The first season, it didn’t feel like an HBCU that I knew from doing School Daze with Spike. When Debbie came, all of a sudden it started to feel more like my first experience.”
Conversation topics in A Different World and School Daze ranged from colorism and classism to student activism and sexual assault, themes Bell said remain important in today’s society.
