Can you believe it has been 25 years since the release of Spike Lee's second feature film, School Daze. This movie in addition to watching A Different World were two of the main reasons I would attend an HBCU (specifically Clark Atlanta University).
School Daze was based on the collegiate experiences of Spike Lee at the historical AUC (Atlanta University Center campus (Morehouse College, Spelman College, Clark Atlanta University, and Morris Brown College). In addition, it would discuss fraternity and sorority life, HBCU homecoming, and even tackle issues of race/racism, skin tone bias, apartheid, and other issues affecting the African American community/diaspora.
We may laugh, sing, dance, and cheer with this movie; but when it is all said and done there was some hard-core solid material that hit the screen. Even to this day we are still discussing many of these issues. I remember when I was an RA back at CAU, I would make sure to always show the incoming class this film. When it all boiled down there was this sense of "black uplift", pride, and an understanding that we always have to do better.
Interestingly, Roger Ebert would state, "There is no doubt in my mind that 'School Daze' in its own way, is one of the most honest revealing movies I've ever seen about modern middle-class black life in America."
So tell me...Are you awake?
1 comment:
I LOVE THIS MOVIE
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