Keshia Knight Pulliam (actress, attended Atlanta's Spelman College, starred as "Rudy Huxtable" in the landmark NBC series The Cosby Show from 1984-1992):

"School Daze definitely had an impact on me choosing a HBCU because it was the first insight I had into a black college. The whole Jiggaboo light skin vs. the dark skin [dance] scene, where they’re singing back and forth, I think if you ask anyone, that’s the scene that stands out. There’s a whole controversy and culture [about] it, but School Daze addressed those issues in an over-the-top, comical way.

"I pledged Delta Sigma Theta. I can’t speak for other people in terms of whether they took offense to [the portrayal of black Greek fraternities and sororities in School Daze], but people in general take film entirely way too seriously. School Daze was meant for enjoyment. It’s not a documentary. I had several trials and tribulations just as anyone does in school, and the whole going to an HBCU as “Rudy” is a whole other experience in itself. But I couldn’t have imagined going anywhere else but Spellman."

Brian McKnight (singer-songwriter, attended Oakwood College, Huntsville, Alabama):

"When I first saw School Daze in 1988, I had already left Oakwood College for a recording deal after my sophomore year. Oakwood is a Christian school in Alabama and I am the fifth generation in my family to have gone there. Considering that I was being offered different sports scholarships to go to other places, my mother was not having it. She was like, “You’re going to this school and that’s pretty much it.” [laughs] But even though I left, I still felt my college experience [coupled with] School Daze were very important. If I had to pick one scene, I think it would be the scene where they performed the step show. I know this sounds strange coming from a black man, but I’d never seen a step show before seeing that movie. Although Oakwood was a black college, it was still a Christian school, so we didn’t do a lot of the things that happened in School Daze. I think that the parallel for me was that everyone at Oakwood was there for higher learning, just like in School Daze. Everybody at that school looked just like me. That’s the part that’s inspiring; that these kids now need to see that it’s okay to go to school. It’s okay to reach for something higher than being an athlete or a music star."

This article was provided by: Vibe