>> Hello.

I'm Doctor Ben Vinson III, the 18th president of Howard University, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to this program, one of many we plan to bring to you as part of the At Howard series.

Howard University has the distinct pleasure of being the only HBCU to hold the license of a public television station across the country.

This special relationship allows WHUT to have unique access to the breadth and depth of academic content that is being produced on our campus, from stimulating lecture series and panel discussions on a wide range of topics to one-on-one conversations with captains of industry and international leaders of business, politics and the arts.

From time to time, WHUT will broadcast some of that content in the form of full programs to short excerpts that we believe will surely stimulate and engage you.

So sit back and enjoy.

We're proud to share with you some of what makes Howard University so special.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> Good evening, Saints.

"God's Trombones" is from a series of poems entitled "The Creation," written by James Weldon Johnson in 1927.

And God stepped out on space and he looked around and said, "I'm lonely.

I'll make me a world."

And God smiled and the light broke.

And the darkness rolled up on one side.

And the light stood shining on the other.

And God said, "That's good."

Then God reached out and took the light in his hands, and God rolled the light around in his hands until he made the sun.

And he set that sun a blazing in the heavens and the light that was left from making the sun.

God gathered it up in a shining ball and flung it against the darkness.

Spangling the night with the moon and stars.

Then down between the darkness and the light, he hurled the world.

And God said, "That's good."

Then God himself stepped down, and the sun was on his right hand, and the moon was on his left.

The stars were clustered about his head, and the earth was under his feet.

And God walked.

And God looked around and stopped and saw that the earth was hot and barren.

So God stepped over to the edge of the world and spat out the seven seas.

He batted his eyes and the lightnings flashed.

He clapped his hands and the thunders rolled, and the waters above the earth came down, the cooling waters came down.

Then the little green grass sprouted and the little red flowers blossomed.

And God smiled again.

And the rainbow appeared and it curled itself about his shoulder.

And God walked around and he looked around and looked on everything that he made with all its living things.

And God said, "I'm lonely...

still."

Up from the bed of the river, God kneeled down and scooped up the clay.

And by the bank of the river he kneeled him down.

And there the great God Almighty, who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky, who flung the stars to the far most corner of the night, who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand.

This great God, like a mammy bending over her baby, kneeled down in the dust, toiling over a lump of clay until he shaped it in his own image... and into it... blew the breath of life.

[ Blows breath ] And man... became a living soul.

Amen.

Amen.

>> "Rachel" by Angelina Weld Grimké, written in response to "The Birth of a Nation" for the NAACP.

Well, Ma dear, I'm your pet poodle, and my hat was over my ear, and I'm late for the loveliest reason.

That may sound silly, but it isn't.

And please don't "Rachel" me so much.

It was honestly one whole hour ago, I opened the front door downstairs.

I-I know it was because... because I heard the postman telling someone it was 4:00.

Well, I climbed the first flight and was just starting up the second when a little shrill voice said...

"Lo!"

[ Laughs ] I raised my eyes and they're halfway up the stairs, sitting in the middle of a step, was the clearest, cutest, darlingest little brown baby boy you ever saw.

"Lo, yourself," I said.

"What are you doing?

And who are you, anyway?"

"I'm Jimmy, and I'm widing to New York on the choo-choo tars."

[ Laughing ] Oh, my.

As he looked entirely too young to be going such a distance by himself, I asked if I might go too.

He considered the question and me very seriously, and then he said..."'Es," and made room for me on the step beside him.

Oh, we've been everywhere -- New York, Chicago, Boston, London, Paris, and Oshkosh.

I wish you could have heard him say that last place.

I suggested going just to hear him.

[ Chuckles ] Well, Ma dear, is it any wonder I am late?

See all the places we've been in just one "teeny weeny" hour?

We would have been traveling yet, but it's horrid, little mother came out and called him in.

Then the flat below, the new people.

Oh, but before he went, Ma dear, he said the "cunningest" thing.

He said.

"Will you tum out an’ p’ay wif me aden in two minutes?” Oh, I nearly hugged him to death.

It's a wonder my hat was on my ear.

Oh, hats are such nuisances anyway.

>> Hello, my name is Diezel Braxton-Lewis.

Today I'll be sharing a piece by William Wells Brown, "The Escape or a Leap for Freedom," who performed this piece at anti-slavery movements.

How... slowly... the time passes.

I've been waiting here two hours, but Melinda has not come yet.

What keeps her...

I don't know.

I waited long and late for her last night.

But when she approached me, I jumped to my feet.

I caught her in my arms.

I kept her close to my heart and I kissed away the tears from her moist cheeks.

She placed her trembling hands onto mine and said, "Glen, I'm yours.

I will never be the wife of another."

I clasped her to my bosom, and I called to God to witness that I would never disregard her as my wife.

Old Uncle Joseph joined us in holy wedlock.

That was the only marriage ceremony.

I looked to my vow as ever, binding to me that I would ever regard my wife, and that a just God will sanction our union in heaven.

Yet still...

This man insists on keeping Melinda for himself as his property.

And is unwilling for me to marry the woman of my choice.

But he can't have her.

[Chuckles snidely] Now, what will he say when he discovers that we are married, I cannot tell.

But I am determined to protect my wife... or die.

>> Hi, my name is Joshua Leggett and I am a senior graduating BFA Acting Concentration major from Chester, Virginia and I'll be performing "Hamlet" as Hamlet.

To be or not to be, that is the question -- Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune... or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing... end them.

To die... to sleep, no more, and by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to -- Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

To die.

To sleep.

To sleep.

Perchance to dream.

[ Scoffs ] Ay, there's the rub.

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.

There's the respect that makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence of office.

and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes?

But that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others we know not of?

[ Chuckles knowingly ] Thus... conscience does make cowards of us all.

Oh, soft you now.

The fair Ophelia.

Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.

>> Greetings.

My name is Diezel Braxton-Lewis.

I am a BFA graduating senior acting concentration, theater arts major, in the Chadwick A. Boseman Howard University.

Today, I'll be sharing a piece from William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" and I'll be portraying Antony.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.

I've come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them.

The good is oft interred in their bones.

So let it be with Caesar.

The noble Brutus hath told you that Caesar was ambitious.

If it were so, it's to a grievous fault.

And grievously hath Caesar answered it.

Here under leave of Brutus and the rest -- For Brutus is an honorable man.

So are they all... honorable men.

Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.

He was my...

He was my friend... faithful... and just to me.

But Brutus says that he was ambitious.

And Brutus is... an honorable man.

He brought many captives home to Rome whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

That when the poor hath cried, Caesar hath wept.

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

Yet Brutus says that he was ambitious.

And Brutus is... an honourable man.

You all did see that on the Lupercal which I thrice presented him a kingly crown, which he thrice refused.

Was this ambition?

Yet Brutus... says that he was ambitious.

And Brutus is... [Laughs mockingly] ...an honourable man.

I come not to disprove a Brutus hath spoke.

But I am here to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once.

But not without cause.

So what cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?

O thou art thy judgment, thy brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason!

Bear with me.

My heart... is there... in the coffin with Caesar.

And I must pause... until it returns to thee.

>> Hello.

My name is Ty'Ree Hope Davis.

I am a graduating senior acting major at Howard University, and I'll be performing a monologue as Shylock from "Merchant of Venice," written by William Shakespeare, a role historically significant as Ira Aldridge was the first African American to portray it.

To bait fish withal -- If it will feed nothing else... it will feed my revenge.

He hath disgraced me and hindered me half a million.

Laughed at my losses... mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies.

And what's his reason?

I am a Jew.

Hath not a Jew eyes?

Hath not a Jew hands... organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?

Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is?

If a Jew wrong a Christian... what is his humility?

Revenge.

If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example?

Why, revenge.

The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard... but I... will better... the instruction.

>> My name is Rebecca Celeste from Miami, Florida, a graduating senior BFA acting major in the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts at Howard University, performing a monologue as Hermione from "A Winter's Tale."

Sir, spare your threats.

The bug which you would frighten me with, I seek.

To me can life be no commodity, The crown and comfort of my life, your favour, I do give lost, for I do feel it gone, But know not how it went.

[ Gasps ] My second joy and first fruit of my body... [Exhales sharply] ...from his presence I am barred like one infectious.

[ Inhales sharply ] My third comfort starred and most unluckily is from my breast.

The innocent milk in its most innocent mouth haled out to murder.

Myself...on every post, proclaimed a strumpet with immodest hatred, the child bed privilege denied, which longs to women of all fashion.

Lastly, hurried here to this place in the open air before I have got strength of limit.

Now, my liege... tell me what blessings I have here alive that I should fear to die?

Therefore proceed.

But yet here this -- Mistake me not, no life, I prize it not a straw, but for mine honor which I would free.

If I shall be condemned upon surmises all proofs sleeping else but what your jealousies awake.

I tell you, tis rigor and not law.

Your Honors all, I do refer me to the oracle.

Apollo, be my judge.

[ Inhales sharply ] [ Exhales shakily ] >> Hello, I am performing "Riot: The Beat of Freddie Gray," a one-man, hip-hop theater piece written by myself, Ty'Ree Hope Davis.

I was inspired to write this play from my own experience of witnessing the 2015 Baltimore riots.

[ Rapping ] ♪ Unh, unh, unh, unh ♪ ♪ F-R-E-Double-D-I-E ♪ ♪ Respect the name or it's Gray oh, see... ♪ Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Cut it, cut it, cut it.

This ain't right.

I-I thought it was right, but it ain't.

I mean, if you listen to it and I mean really listen, you see...it's unsettling.

Like, it's... like it's missing something.

Like it's... Oh, it ain't got no life in it.

That's what it's missing -- some life.

I can't drop this song to a beat that ain't got no life to it.

'Cause see a beat with life, like, boils your blood but cools your skin.

It starts with a deep resonant pulse that vibrates up your legs, up across your chest, settling somewhere in your gut.

It's that rhythm that compels you to slide to the left when the "Cha-Cha Slide" come on or bop your head when Lil Scooter come on or sing your heart out to Mario, begging your girl to let you love her.

It's the sound of -- of raindrops tapping on the window pane, ra-rain raindrops tapping on the window pane.

It's the force... that keeps the ocean water from being still.

It waves and ripples and sometimes crashes.

But what it ain't... is that.

What it ain't... is lifeless.

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