Nkechi Okoro Carroll grew up using VHS tape to record the lives of Whitley Gilbert and Ron Johnson with no idea their storylines on A Different World reflected real people and experiences.
“I don’t even think I realized that HBCUs were a thing,” the All American: Homecoming showrunner told ESSENCE. “I was born in New York, but my family is Nigerian and we moved back to Nigeria when I was five. Most of what I knew about American culture, even though I was born here, was what I saw on TV.
“I just loved that it was Black characters of all shades and types, and backgrounds that were all at this higher learning institution,” she added. “They were all smart, even though their personalities were so different.”
(Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images)Carroll’s bringing that same diversity to the spinoff of The CW’s sports drama All American. “We’re seeing across the spectrum of our characters, people that come from every single one of those groups,” she said.
Carroll studied at the University of Pennsylvania when, she said, “all 522 Black students,” stood out. “I don’t even know what the number is today, but that’s about what it was when I was there. So we always used to joke about like, you know, the head nod, everyone gives each other on campus.
“I come from a very traditional Nigerian family. So it’s like, if you’re not going to the Ivy league something’s wrong with you,” she added. “Creating All American: Homecoming was truthfully very selfishly about giving myself an opportunity to enroll in the HBCU I always wanted to go to.”
Visiting HBCUs inspired her. “My best friend went to school in DC and I was spending a lot of time with her there. And I was all sudden like, wait, what are these other magical institutions where there’s so many people that look like us,” she said.
She found community in a quad Black students frequented. “You go over that bridge at Penn and it’s a whole ‘nother world,” she said. “The divine nine are hanging out. It’s where the Black dorm was. It’s where the cafeteria that most of the Black students ate was.” She hung “at the Kappa house or the Alpha house which were both just off campus, but they threw epic parties,” she added. A scene in the All American: Homecoming pilot paid tribute to experiences she had there. “Inevitably, if you were a member of the Black student body, you always found yourself at one of those events,” she explained.
“Our Black student union threw what is arguably one of the most iconic fashion shows every year which was actually what I recreated in our backdoor pilot for All American: Homecoming. It was very much inspired by my girlfriend, Luam Keflezgy who used to
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