Morgan State Documentary Premieres On PBS, Celebrating 150 Years Of Legacy During HBCU Week

The dramatized documentary chronicles the founding and growth of Morgan State for over 150 years.

As part of its slate of HBCU Week NOW coverage, PBS will air History Of A National Treasure: Morgan State University, a dramatized documentary chronicling the founding and growth of Morgan State for over 150 years. In addition to the documentary on Morgan State, aired original programming dedicated to the other 100 HBCUs covered by their broadcasting system. HBCU Week began Sept. 2 and wraps up Sept. 8.

According to Afro News, the film made its debut in Maryland Public Television’s studio to a group of Morgan State University leaders on Aug. 27, the group included Morgan State University President Dr. David K. Wilson, Board of Regents Chair Congressman Kwesi Afume, Regent Dr. Linda Gilliam, and Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown.

The audience members in attendance praised the film, saying that its storytelling was powerful and captivating and the documentation of the history of the storied HBCU, which began as Centenary Biblical Institute after its formation in 1867 by a group of formerly enslaved people and the Methodist Episcopal Church was necessary.

According to the outlet, the genesis of the film lay in creating what could not be found, a fitting development for an HBCU. Dr. Wilson was searching the library on campus for a comprehensive history of Morgan State University and could not find it, but former Morgan State University Regent and Dean Emeritus Dr. Burney J. Hollis found the story of the founders of the university.

In that story, one of the university’s founders, Rev. Samuel Green Sr., was arrested and sentenced to a 10-year sentence in the Baltimore City Penitentiary in 1857 for possessing a copy of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which had been deemed illegal abolitionist propaganda. (Maryland was a slave-owning state.) Upon his release in 1862, Green promised to blaze a trail to educate the formerly enslaved population in Maryland, along with Rev. Benjamin Brown, Rev. Elijah Grissom, Rev. James Harper, and Rev. James Peck, Green founded the university now known as Morgan State University.

According to Travis Mitchell, the Senior vice president and chief content officer for Maryland Public Television, this story highlights the need to tell stories about the nation’s HBCUs.

“This is the reason why we must be tireless about telling and sharing the HBCU story,” Mitchell told Afro News. “When we tell our story, not only do we remember who we are, but we empower a new generation of young people with the knowledge of who they are called to become. We inspire and ignite history in the making. Morgan is only one of 107 HBCUs, and each school has thousands upon thousands of untold stories in its history, students and alumni.”

The film’s writer and producer, Morgan State University’s Inaugural Dean Emeritus DeWayne Wickham led a group of 37 students in Morgan State’s School of Global Journalism and Communication Center for New Media and Strategic Initiatives as they filmed the documentary, which has a runtime of 37 minutes. Wickham founded the National Association of Black Journalists and applauded the students who worked hard at creating the documentary ahead of the screening.

“This project that culminated in this film you are about to see is the work of not just my own effort, but the effort of others who have been working with me,” Wickham said. “I pushed these young people, and oftentimes they pushed back. We got a lot done, in a short period of time.”

Rep. Afume also spoke ahead of the screening, recalling his time working at Maryland Public Television as a janitor and saying that his time as a student at Morgan State University lifted him up as it continues to lift up students currently attending the university.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to study or if I could afford to study anything,” Mfume said. “I was a teenage parent when I first heard about Morgan, so when I got there in my early twenties, It was like a dream come true. It did for me then what it continues to do for so many young people now. That is to meet them where they are, lift them up, and remind them that they are indeed somebody.”