Despite HBCUs having significant cultural relevance and contributing to the overall Black experience, their portrayals on screen are few and far between.
Thankfully, however, a few hallmark films remain in the historical archives and capture what many of us have experienced for decades. For many of us, these were the movies that made us want to go to an HBCU in the first place; for others, they were the first time they saw their own campus life on the big screen.
But just like any piece of art, there is room for critique. Some films have done it well, and others have, well… gotten it done, so to speak. And before I get into my own opinions and verdicts, here are my credentials: I’m a graduate of Howard University (School of Law), a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., a resident of the Washington, D.C. area (i.e., the Black mecca), and a lover of Black thought and film… and most importantly, I do and say what I please, so everything you read below is reflected by that.
Here are some of my favorite HBCU films, ranked from lowest to highest.
Burning Sands (2017) | Grade: C
Let’s get this out of the way before we get into the facts of the film: hazing is unacceptable, and it’s gotten even worse over the years. People have been hurt, and some have died, and as a member of *theeeee* Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., I take that seriously. So I understand why director Gerard McMurray wanted to make this film, and I respect that he went there when most of Hollywood wouldn’t touch the subject.
Trevor Jackson plays Zurich, a pledgee at Lambda Phi at the fictional Frederick Douglass University during the final week before Hell Night. He’s experiencing what typical pledgees do during that time, from exhaustion to falling behind in class, and his girlfriend can’t figure out why he keeps disappearing. The incomparable Alfre Woodard plays the professor who notices something is wrong, and Steve Harris plays a dean who is a part of the same frat and seems to know a lot more than he lets on.
Now, see, I could have gotten behind this one a bit more if the film ever left the basement. We almost never see the parts of Greek life that made me want to join, like the service projects, the late-night study sessions with your line sisters (or brothers), or even the probate, which arguably was one of the most important nights of my life. If Burning Sands is the only window someone has into a Black Greek organization, they’d walk away thinking we exist to beat on each other (which is not true at all). Jackson does a great job with this, and I’d tell anyone to watch it once, take the meat and throw away the bones, as my grandma used to say.
Stomp the Yard (2007) | Grade: B
I remember sitting in a packed theater in January 2007 with a group of 10 of my friends, as a sophomore at the University of Maryland, College Park (just months before I crossed actually), and this was the hottest thing in theaters. The movie opened at No. 1 at the box office that weekend, which tells you how hungry we were to see a Black campus on a big screen.
Columbus Short plays DJ, a dancer from L.A. who moves to Atlanta to attend Truth University after his little brother (Chris Brown) is killed in a fight. He falls for April, played by Meagan Good, and it doesn’t take long for two fraternities, Theta Nu Theta and Mu Gamma Xi, to start fighting over him because he can dance.
Was it especially realistic? No… lol. On an actual yard, organizations care about your grades, your character, and whether you’ve done your homework on who they are and whether or not you can step sits a lot lower on that list. The stepping also leans in on krump and battle choreography (I’ve never witnessed stepping like this in real life), and that bothered me because it traditionally grows out of history, call-and-response and ritual, with every organization honing its own style.
I will give the movie credit for the scene where DJ learns about the men who built his fraternity and starts to understand the letters stand for something. As someone who had to learn every founder’s name before I crossed, I could relate. And yes, if it comes on BET while I’m flipping channels, I’m watching it.
Drumline (2002) | Grade: A-
Ask anybody who has been to an HBCU homecoming why they stayed in their seats at halftime, and they’ll tell you it was for the band. In fact, earlier I attended the Howard vs. Hampton Classic in Washington, D.C. earlier this month, and it’s the part I made sure I was in my seat for.
Nick Cannon plays Devon Miles, a cocky snare drummer from Harlem who lands a scholarship to Atlanta A&T University even though he can’t read music, and the details sold me instantly. The freshmen are called crabs, and the section leaders run the drumline like a military unit. Dr. Lee’s “one band, one sound” philosophy (played by Orlando Jones) is something you’ll hear from real directors, and his fight with the school president, who wants a flashier show so alumni keep writing checks, will sound familiar to anyone who knows how thin HBCU budgets can get. The final battle against Morris Brown College matters even more now; Morris Brown lost its accreditation shortly after the movie came out and didn’t get it back until 2022, so watching that band at full strength feels a little bittersweet today.
I took off a few points because you can see Devon’s arc coming from a mile away and he barely goes to class. But I’ve watched Howard’s band at homecoming more times than I can count, and Drumline nails the feeling in the stands.
School Daze (1988) | Grade: A
If you’ve been to a homecoming party in the last 35 years, you’ve danced to “Da Butt,” and you have Spike Lee to thank for that. School Daze gave us a lot more than a party record, though.
Lee went to Morehouse, and he drew from his time in the Atlanta University Center (AUC to many of us) to create Mission College, where the entire movie plays out over one homecoming weekend. Laurence Fishburne plays Dap, who is trying to get the school to divest from apartheid South Africa. Giancarlo Esposito plays Julian, head of Gamma Phi Gamma, and Spike plays Half-Pint, a pledge who wants those letters so badly he’ll do almost anything to get them. Meanwhile, the women on campus are split into the lighter-skinned “Wannabees” and the darker-skinned “Jigaboos,” and they face off in a beauty-salon musical number about “good” and “bad” hair.
Colorism, class, respectability politics, Greek life, student activism and what an HBCU owes the larger Black community are all in this film. Those conversations still happen today, so, as always, Spike was ahead of his time, even in 1988.
Now, I can’t say the film is flawless, which is why I bumped it from an A+ to an A (because, in reality, who gets an A+ for anything?). The storyline where Julian pressures his girlfriend Jane, played by Tisha Campbell, into sleeping with Half-Pint is hard to watch, and the movie moves past it way too quickly. The tone also swings from musical to comedy to heavy drama, sometimes inside the same scene. I’ve seen people argue about that ending for years, with Dap running across the yard yelling for everybody to wake up, and it’s clear people still have not gotten that message.
The Great Debaters (2007) | Grade: A+
In 1935, the debate team at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, beat the University of Southern California, considered the reigning national champion at the time. The Great Debaters tells that story, and Denzel Washington directs and stars as Melvin B. Tolson, who coached the team while also writing poetry and quietly organizing sharecroppers. They had me at Denzel, and it’s a large part of the reason this one gets an A+ from me.
Forest Whitaker plays James Farmer Sr., and Denzel Whitaker plays his son James Farmer Jr., who grew up to cofound the Congress of Racial Equality. Nate Parker and Jurnee Smollett play the other debaters (editor’s note: this was peak Nate Parker, when we all thought he would be the next Denzel). Hollywood did change one detail; the movie has Wiley facing Harvard in the final round instead of USC.
This is the movie I’d hand to anyone who asks why we still need HBCUs. Tolson pushes those students hard because he knows what’s waiting for them outside the gates in Jim Crow Texas, and he’s preparing them to win arguments in rooms white America never expected them to enter. The scene on the road where the team comes upon a lynching is one of the hardest things I’ve ever watched in a theater, and I remember sitting there thinking about how brave you had to be to stand up and speak your mind in Texas in 1935. I had professors at Howard who pushed me like Tolson pushed his team, especially as a law student, and I’ll admit I complained about a few of them back then, but now I get it.
Denzel also pledged $1 million to Wiley College in 2007 so the school could bring back its debate team, which might be the best review a filmmaker has ever given his own movie.
Now if anyone is in the business of making films and looking for another recommendation, I’d love to see a movie about the Greensboro Four, the students at North Carolina A&T who they sat down at that Woolworth’s lunch counter in 1960 to fight for racial equality. Howard students taking over the administration building in 1968 to demand a curriculum that reflected Black life would make a great film too. I’d buy a ticket for either one, and I don’t even need a producer credit.