COSBY'S GREATEST LEGACY

As I was flipping through the channels this weekend, I came across a special about the Cosby Show. They were discussing how September of this week marked the 25th anniversary of the show premiering on NBC. It blew my mind on how the time had passed. I guess since the show had been in syndication for so long, you forget the last episode was in 1992. The Cosby Show had a very special place in my early childhood. I remember vividly every Thursday night at eight o'clock, me and my family were glued to the television watching that show. Before the Obamas, the Huxtables had set the bar for excellency and achievement in the black community. The patriarch, Cliff Huxtable, was a doctor and his wife, Claire, was a lawyer. They had four daughters and a son. They were Sondra, Denise, Vannessa, Rudy, and Theo. At the time, I was unaware of the historical significance of the program. The only thing I knew that it was a good show, had great characters, it was funny and educational. But as I grew older, I found out how the show transformed the way white people viewed black people. The show was able to dispel many long standing negative stereotypes about black culture and work ethic. So with the success of the Cosby Show, in 1987, a spin off show which had the Huxtable's second oldest daughter Denise attending fictional historically black Hillman College. The name of the show was called A Different World. This show was America's first look into college life at a HBCU. It is said that the show fueled an increase in enrollment at HBCU's and gave a strong sense of black nationalism that was typical in the early to mid 90's. But the impact of the show went far deeper than that. I feel the show was Cosby's way of injecting his political activist idealism that he couldn't do on The Cosby Show. A Different World dealt with the basic college lifestyle like pledging a fraternity and being broke, which is typical in most white's perception of college. But were the show differed was in its delving into issues ranging from race, gender, and economic and its affects on the black community. The show had pointed episodes which dealt directly with opposition to the first Gulf War, apartheid in South Africa, and the legitimacy of black colleges and universities. The show brought together black students from different socio economic backgrounds and with different prospectives on life to the Hillman campus. But the true genius of the show was how much the college demanded from the students even on the first day of campus. They challenged them to achieve to their greatest potential and helped shape their views of life in college and after graduation. This concept is rooted in the history and traditon of HBCU's. The purpose of these schools was to train black men and women in their desired field of study, but also to make them leaders and advocates in their communities. Even though it was a television show, the mark it left on me was deafening. At the age of 12 years old, it inspired me to want to attend Howard University and try and help in the black community. I ultimately didn't attend an HBCU, instead the University of Houston, but the common thread from the show was in me. I approached college the way as everybody else, as a place to have fun, meeting people, and studying. But utimately knew their was an education outside my books that I needed to further my growth. I went to forums held by the African American Studies Associaton and other student organizations about a wide array of topics. It was enlightening to have the regional head of the Nation of Islam, other community leaders, and intellectuals debating different issues. I also attended a rally to try and persuade the chairperson of the liberal arts department to hire a guy who wanted to take African American Studies from a minor to a major. But my most vivid memory was attending a forum about the late Lynn Eusan, who was the first black homecoming queen at U of H in the late 1960s and political activist. I remember one of the speakers talking about how he along with Ms Eusan and a few others where the first batch of black students that integrated U of H in 1964. He talked about how all the black people knew each other back then and how they had parties/gatherings in the hall we were in. Hearing him and others speak about their struggles in those days and their joy seeing a bigger black population at U of H was a heartening moment. As I was sitting in the room, I realized that I had an obligation to live up to the legacy that was bestowed amongst me. I can't admit that I was the most politcally or socially active in college, but I was politcally and socially consensus. I know that the lessons learned on A Different World planted the seeds for my curiousity. It made my college experience fuller and greater by making me increase my social awareness through the use of professors, mentors, friends, and my own personal studies. I still watch the re-runs of the show today and they hit more closer to home since graduating college than when I was a child. So as we take time to commemorate the anniversary of The Cosby Show, let us not forget the way A Different World actually brought a huge difference to our world.