Nkechi Okoro Carroll Wants To 'Celebrate' HBCU Culture With 'All American: Homecoming'
essence.comWhitley 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.” 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.
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