ILLYA DAVIS: You have to decid right now, what are you gonna do in light of the social injustices that permeate society?

TRAVIS MITCHELL: The governor will not meet with us.

We are prepared to sit in until we get results.

MARCELLIS MCQUEEN: I chose Morehouse because of the culture.

I realized that I could very well be next to do something big.

TINA MCDUFFIE: From Maryland Public Television and WABE, two films that celebrate the history of changemakers at HBCUs on Local, U.S.A. ♪ ♪ Historically Black colleges and universities played a critical role in the civil rights movement.

Without HBCUs at the forefront of change in America, many of the freedoms that Americans enjoy today would not have been possible.

In this first film, we'll see how a protest that I was deeply involved in was the catalyst to improve the quality of life of students at my alma mater, Morgan State University and, ultimately, all public HBCUs in Maryland.

REPORTER: At Morgan State University, the protest continues.

At this hour, students are attending a forum to air their gripes about conditions on campus.

Education reporter Debbie Wright is standing by live at Morgan State with this report.

Deb?

DEBBIE WRIGHT: Well, Ann, students are still filing into Murphy Auditorium here on the campus of Morgan State University, where they're going to be holding an open forum with school administrators to voice some of the many concerns that they have.

Now, the concerns of the students really runs the gamut.

They're concerned about everything from security issues to what one student called "deplorable" conditions of rat and rodent infestation in some of the dorms.

But the students' main concern has to do with the level of state funding at the school.

And that's why they staged an overnight sit-in.

("Revolutionary Generation" by Public Enemy playing) ♪ I get down to what it is, and if it ain't funky ♪ CLAIR: We were the first generation of children of the Civil Rights.

♪ Huh, wait a minute ♪ LOVE-KELLY: We were the babies of the hip-hop generation.

♪ By the character ♪ ♪ Funky, pump it like that ♪ It was live.

LOVE-KELLY: We were babies of shows like School Daze.

Spike Lee's School Daze.

LOVE-KELLY: A Different World.

CLAIR: Cosby Show.

Cosby Show was on and was extremely popular.

And then Different World rolled out.

Denise went away to college, a fictional HBCU.

So there, there was kind of like this, this bright light, if you will, on HBCUs and, and what was possible if you could just make it to someone's campus.

Most of America did not know what to make of us.

All they knew about Black people was our trauma.

Nah, it's not drama.

Theo won't clean up his room.

America hadn't seen that before.

Sondra's coming home from where?

That was just one representation.

There's a ton of nuance between, let's say, the, the, the Huxtables and the Evans family.

Between Good Times and The Cosby Show, there's a ton of nuance in here that America never even knew existed.

JOHNSON: We were in the middle of the crack epidemic, crack was running rampant.

I tell my students today that I grew up, um, during Reagan's war on drugs, and I can still remember those television commercials, um, with, with Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" and... - Just say "No."

- JOHNSON: When-- where they opened the-- cracked the egg into the skillet.

"This is your brain."

ADVERTISEMENT NARRATOR: This is your brain on drugs.

CLAIR: The mass incarceration was in full swing.

The school-to-prison pipeline was now a thing.

The, the strides that the Civil Rights movement had made, they were already, in 1990, we only talking 20-something years later, they're already trying to repeal this and get it out of here and so on and so forth.

So to put some things in historical context, the Voting Rights Act just passed in 1965.

So, I was born soon after that.

And I'm the first woman on my mom's side of the family born with 100% civil rights.

RICHARDSON: Historically Black colleges are a byproduct of American racism.

It reflects the pain of neglect and discrimination... ...as well as the activism in the struggle to overcome that discrimination.

WRIGHT: The students say they want more state money for their school because they say that other state schools have bigger budgets and get bigger yearly increases than Morgan does.

MELODY SIMMONS: "About 200 angry Morgan State students today "took over an office in the university's "administration building, "demanding changes in financial aid, "student housing, registration procedures "and campus security.

"The students shouted comments and questions "to President Earl Richardson and Vice President "for Student Affairs Raymond Downs.

"Both administrators were at Downs's office "in Truth Hall where they tried to address "the protestors who had begun the sit-in at 8:30 A.M." WILLIAM POWELL: Yeah, man.

Mmm.

"The director of Morgan State Police Force was in, investigating how officers handled the melee."

(chuckles) Yeah, they called it a "melee."

We weren't fighting; we were just protesting.

HARRIS: This movement here, our staying overnight, is to document our seriousness and the means that we'll go to, to see that the needs of this university are met because we love our university.

1989 was a very interesting year in the state.

Um, our mayor, William Donald Schaefer had gone to Annapolis and he was now governor.

That gave the city a little extra cachet to have the former mayor, who was very popular, down in the State House.

But there were rough times because you had the recession, you had some economic impact, and that trickled down to a lot of agencies and academia, as well.

And a lot of the schools, Morgan included, wanted to retain its independence.

It felt that its identity, its legacy, and its history, as a historically Black college and university, HBCU, was very vital to hanging on to its independence.

And Earl Richardson drove that bus.

He was trying very hard to keep Morgan moving and moving ahead.

Student enrollment had gone up to 4,000, which was a great benchmark for them.

The campus itself was, what I remember from taking tours of it, was in terrible need of repairs.

I was shocked.

CLAIR: We were in dorms that hadn't been renovated in forever.

LOVE-KELLY: Literally, you could not walk barefoot on the floor because you would burn your feet.

So it was extreme heat.

I would sleep in the windowsill to get the air.

PERRY: Not just maintenance issues, but construction issues.

You could sit in some places in Jenkins Hall and literally look through cracks to the outside of the building.

They're falling apart.

I could see whatever this is-- that's not asbestos, it's asbestos' cousin.

If we are the "cream of the crop," if we are the "future of the nation," if we are the kids who did everything right to get here, how come we are still in struggle while we are here?

Everybody gets to their breaking point, right, where you've had enough.

The spirit of the students is that they wanted change, and they wanted it now.

TIM TOOTEN: I was working at WBAL-TV.

And I don't know how I got the assignment, but I thought it was gonna be a one-and-done.

You go over, students upset about, uh, you know, uh, the dormitories, and that's it.

Well, this thing lasted much longer than a one-night news package.

I do remember, uh, just the organization, in that they said, "We have a spokesperson.

No need to, you know, go across campus."

And I remember this young man-- uh, I'm not sure if I'd cut my hi-top fade by then or not-- but I remember someone who was very serious, and everybody you talked to said, "No, you want to go to him."

Of course, everyone wanted to have a say-so.

But there were some folks who were overly, uh, animated than others.

And so we just pretty much had to boil it down to the folks who better served being able to get the message out.

Travis Mitchell emerged as the leader for this movement.

I had no idea who Travis Mitchell was, and I knew everybody.

I was like, who's Travis Mitchell?

Who is, who is Travis Mitchell?

I never even heard of Travis Mitchell.

Who?

Who's his girlfriend?

Who he hang out with?

Does he drink?

Who's he party with?

You know... (stammering) I had no idea.

And then I heard him speak.

MITCHELL: How many people in here are willing to sit in?

(cheering) If the governor will not meet with us, we are prepared to sit in until we get results.

Oh, Travis Mitchell.

Whoever that dude is, he's that dude.

We had sat down-- the task force, some of the leaders-- and said, okay, we need to actually put some structure to this, we were early on.

Other roles, so we, we chose the correspondence secretary to get out information to everybody.

We chose, uh, a recording secretary to document, uh, every meeting that we had.

Nothing more important here than choosing Travis as our speaker.

He was influential, uh, our frontman.

We told him, your job is to verbalize all actions and intentions to the media, not to get into no arguments with nobody, not to get into no fights.

You know, Travis had, you know, he was riled up, too.

MITCHELL: Yeah, I was drafted by the late great Earl Mouzon as a classmate of ours who we all consider, um, the leader of the movement.

Well, our knowledge base and our understanding of what was happening to Morgan systemically started with that first data point.

From 1950 to 1979, if you've only had a roughly $750,000 in what's known as maintenance, and that maintenance has been deferred, well, that's a little less than, uh, roughly about $10,000 or, or more a year, a little, little bit more.

How are you gonna fix up dormitories with that amount of money over that period of time?

Uh, to juxtapose that, where other campus universities, at the same time, the larger campuses and universities in the system that happened to be traditionally white institutions were getting millions to maintain their, their facilities.

From there, uh, we became keenly aware that in order for things to happen for Morgan, it was gonna have to happen with the governor.

REPORTER: They left Baltimore by mid-morning.

Destination?

Annapolis.

Purpose?

To show support for student leaders who will meet with Governor Schaefer to discuss the students' concern for more state funding for Morgan State University.

But we want to be here until we get our point across.

REPORTER: Once they arrived, they sang songs.

STUDENTS: ♪ I'm so glad I go to Morgan State ♪ We cannot come to the Capitol and be afraid.

We needed to put the pressure on the governor to act now.

We also discovered that there had been master plans for Morgan's development that were over 25 years old.

But those plans had never been funded.

So we started discovering, oh, this is bigger than, like, the maintenance part.

Maybe this is part of the plot.

Don't give them money, enrollment goes down, right?

The research said that it wasn't the faculties, it wasn't the students, it wasn't the alumni, and, surprise, it wasn't the president.

It was the neglect that has attended our historically Black colleges-- neglect by the state, by elected officials to provide the resources that would make the university as competitive as any other university on the face of the earth.

So what we needed to do is we needed to call for the immediate, uh, renovations of, of some of our worst on-campus dormitories.

We figured if we would start there, then it would create kind of a momentum where you, you're having to take the buildings down.

And so if you take those buildings down, you got to begin building something new.

We had elevated our, our arguments and our positioning of our demands from internal Morgan issues about, uh, registration or financial aid to now statewide issues that the, only the governor and the state could address, which included, um, uh, investment in personnel, faculty and staff, making sure that we have security that we need on campus, lighting on campus, um, and of course the immediate renovation of our on-campus facilities.

It really set the table for Morgan to move forward and not only in the state of Maryland for higher ed, but all over in the country.

And in other words, the university has grown leaps and bounds.

So I think the legacy of that sit-in and that protest is what we're seeing today.

BRUCE: It inspired Dr. Richardson to retire and take on the lawsuit to the state of Maryland because he saw what was going on.

And we went down there and said, "All this money is going to these other places, and we're not getting our fair share."

MITCHELL: It required a lawsuit against the state for a historic practice of discrimination to trigger the state to do what it needed to do on behalf of all the four HBCUs and address that past historic underfunding.

So we think that what we were able to accomplish in 1990-- in fact, we know it-- planted the seeds that ultimately wound up being settled for $577 million.

CLAIR: You know, some of us put our edu--, put our tuitions, our scholarships on the line, our jobs on the line.

I put my job on the line; I worked for housing.

I'm not supposed to be out here protesting.

You know, and I was, look, I was doing some protesting and then go back and make sure they wasn't looking for me, then I'm back to the protest.

I can see the dorm from where the protest was going on.

So to see where Morgan State University is now, to see the respect that it gets, it's a national treasure.

Now it's called a national treasure.

And look at the money that-- could you imagine this national treasure having condensation make it look like it's raining in the hallways of the dorm?

That's what we were living through.

So we knew it was a national treasure.

I had heard about Morgan State from my brother and my uncle and other people.

I knew what this was.

We needed the world to know what that was.

So now when we raise our voice up, they listen.

They march, they marched 32 miles.

I watched us become adults.

Now, of course, you don't become an adult in six days, but I watched it turn on collectively for the group that this is real and we have a voice and we can impact, in America, in the state of Maryland, being Black in 1990, we can make a difference.

REPORTER: What if nothing comes of it?

Something will come of it.

♪ Put your money where your mouth is ♪ ♪ I got change; I can do it like a house bid ♪ ♪ Now let's bang; put your money where your mouth is ♪ ♪ I got change ♪ ♪ I can do it like a house bid ♪ ♪ Now let's bang; put your money where your mouth is.

♪ Next, we'll learn about the legacy of a key changemaker, Dr. Benjamin Mays, who had a profound influence on me and many other students and leaders, including a young Dr. King.

Dr. Mays was the president of another HBCU, Morehouse College, for almost 30 years from 1940 to 1967 and helped create the campus's non-violent protest tradition now known as "the Morehouse Mystique."

REPORTER 1: Pro-Palestinian protests... REPORTER 2: On campuses around the country... REPORTER 3: These are the scenes that have played out.

Hundreds have been arrested.

Some violently.

- Get back!

ALLEN: In the summer of 2024, headlines all over the country buzzed with news about students coming together to protest the war in Gaza.

But things unfolded differently at Morehouse College.

REPORTER: Morehouse has not seen the protests like we've seen on other college campuses, including here in Atlanta.

Your voices should be heard.

And I promise you, I hear them.

ALLEN: As an incoming freshman, I wondered what motivated the students to show up differently in the face of what they felt was injustice.

It was consistent with Morehouse to the degree to which you did what was consistent with integrity and respect.

We understand what peaceful protest means.

CARRIE DUMAS: The way they carried themselves with so much dignity, so much pride.

A lot of this go back to the Mays era.

THOMAS SAMPSON The reputation of Morehouse men is credited in substantial part to none other than Benjamin Elijah Mays, a builder of men.

♪ ♪ JEREMIAH LOWTHER: I want to talk about what makes Morehouse so special.

And the best way to explain it is from a term coined by our sixth president, Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays.

And that's the Morehouse Mystique.

But there's a quote by Dr. Mays that I believe explains it the best.

And the quote says, "There is an air of expectancy at Morehouse College.

"It is expected that the student who enters here will do well.

We expect nothing less."

So my question to you all is, what is excellence to you?

MCQUEEN: I chose Morehouse because of the culture.

I think about the rich history from people like Benjamin E. Mays and Martin Luther King, Jr.

I realized that I could very well be next to do something big, just like them.

Morehouse is a all-male HBCU in Atlanta, Georgia.

Its mission is to develop men with disciplined minds who will lead lives of leadership and of service.

Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays grew up in a very peculiar situation.

He grew up in the Jim Crow South where one of his first memories were riots that were happening in the city because of the color of his skin.

And so growing up, he knew he wanted to become an educator.

He knew he wanted to influence people, and he sought out to do just that.

Benjamin Mays became a minister, a civil rights leader, and the sixth president and longest-serving president of Morehouse College.

27 years he served as president.

27 years, he was crafting the minds, right?

27 years he was creating leaders.

27 years he was creating curriculum, creating decisions that will last forever.

I call him the Father of Morehouse College.

When Mays becomes president of Morehouse in 1940, he had served as the dean of the chapel at Howard University prior to that.

So when he came to Morehouse College, the war in Europe had begun.

And the draft had been asymmetrical with respect to drafting disproportionate number of Blacks, if you consider their percentage of the population.

The board of trustees told him we're losing so many men.

If we continue to lose men, we will have to close Morehouse College.

And Dr. Mays said, "Not on your life."

One way of responding was to allow early admissions; going into high schools and drawing individuals out early.

He had pulled together a plan to recruit 15- and 16-year-old boys who was too young to go into the service but had the knowledge base to succeed in college.

And that's how he recruited Martin Luther King and so many other great figures during his lifetime.

SAMPSON: He was a special advisor to Lyndon B. Johnson during the Civil Rights era.

He was a mentor to the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

If you consider the fact Lerone Bennett, Martin Luther King Jr., Samuel DuBois Cook, now you have other people like Michael Lomax, Maynard Jackson, Julian Bond, all these individuals were students here at Morehouse College.

What greater contribution is there to produce or to create or to even enliven in these students a sense of commitment to community, to right over wrong.

I think Dr. Mays was particularly moved to inspire.

We owe that Morehouse Mystique to Dr. Mays.

LOWTHER: One thing I love to talk about is the Morehouse Mystique.

It's a term coined by Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays.

But once again, the definition is very elusive.

So I want to ask you all, what does the Morehouse Mystique mean to you?

I guess, like, the energy of the school just is the mystique.

- I think it's also a way, like, the way you speak.

- Like your attitude.

It comes down to the confidence that you have and the way that you're gonna be bold enough to try and exude that.

You try to offset the stereotypes.

So because the stereotype was we weren't intelligent, we were slothful, we were lazy; his point was, you're going to counter that.

SULLIVAN: It really meant the amalgamation of inspiration, of, um, being challenged, really having high expectations, being honest and trustworthy, and being one of service to your fellow man.

ALLEN: No matter how th Morehouse Mystique is described, it must be the inspiration behind why the Morehouse students felt compelled to protest.

And most of all, how the Morehouse students protested.

We need you here!

BELL: The main things that Mays as a president wanted to instill in his students is that, um, those who are courageous will truly find something to reach or move towards in order to make change.

LOWTHER: Up here, you can see a statue of President Mays, as well.

But before I get to the statue, I want to talk about what you're standing on right here.

So you can see there's an image down at your feet.

At the bottom it says "Et Facta Est Lux."

That is the motto of Morehouse College, and that means "And there was light."

So as you typically walk around this way you can see the clouds.

And the clouds represent all of the darkness of the world, all of the hatred, all of the "-isms" and "-obias" that make the world a worse place.

But out of that darkness you can see the sun, which represents Mother Morehouse.

And each one of these rays represents one of you.

(whistle trilling) (feet stomp) ♪ ♪ CHOIR: ♪ Lift him up ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Lift him up ♪ DAVIS: When one comes to Morehouse as a student, what is immediate is you can't be who you used to be.

♪ Lift him up ♪ ♪ Lift him up, lift him up.

♪ ALLEN Dr. Mays left the responsibility to each Morehouse student to lead with excellence.

He expected nothing less.

All of you have to decide at your moment what will you do?

What I did as a student becomes irrelevant.

You have to decide right now.

What are you going to do in light of the social injustices that permeate society?

MCQUEEN: By default, we have a platform, just based off of the school we attended, and the school we will graduate from and even more of a reasoning and even more of a opportunity to be a change and to make a change.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪