On this episode of On the Yard, MarQuis Bullock, Head of Collections in MSRC’s Manuscripts Division, is joined by special guest Dominique Morriseau, award-winning playwright and author. Morriseau’s work includes the Tony Award-nominated play Skeleton Crew, Paradise Blue, Detroit 67, Confederates, Pipeline, Sunset Baby, Blood at the Root, and Follow Me to Nellie’s.  She's also the Tony Award-nominated book writer on the Broadway musical, Ain't Too Proud – The Life and Times of The Temptations.

Morriseau and Bullock explore  the creative tensions Black playwrights and theater makers may be confronted with as they navigate the impact of historical precedent, what cultural expectations are imposed upon them and their work, how the ordinary rhythms of Black life intersect with the enduring weight of history, and how Black imagination and creativity within theater can accommodate, question, or even resist that entanglement.

Episode Guide:

00:00 Introduction

04:47 Literary Influences and Inspirations

07:01 The Influence of Poetry on Playwriting

08:30 Black Aesthetic and Language in Theater

10:58 Accountability to the Past in Black Theater

14:22 Challenges and Realities of Black Playwriting

23:09 The Politics and Ideology of Black Plays

31:56 The Unique Power of Theater

37:30 Balancing Past and Present in Black Life

42:58 Sources of Artistic Inspiration

On the Yard is a production of The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

The power of theater to reveal unseen realities

03:52:  By interrogating the unique possibilities of theater as a medium, I'm hoping that today we can illuminate how black theater, black creativity, offers singular visions of and insights into black life that challenge and move beyond more accessible or commodified forms of representation.

There is no path to black liberation without confronting black pain
28:42:  There is no path to black liberation or black joy without confronting black pain. And telling black storytellers to skip the pain part is like telling your doctor to skip the journey of the medicine into the healing. That's crazy talk. We are not going to heal if we are not going to deal.

Art always rebuilds broken civilizations

33:16:  Because theater, like it has always done, like art has always done in the past. This is why the past does matter because the past will teach you that art always rebuilds broken civilizations. It's always been the answer. And will again. And so theater is necessary to be a part of that movement of civilization mending and rebuilding.

Show Links: 

• The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center
• Follow MSRC on Instagram and YouTube
• Follow playwright Dominique Morisseau on Instagram

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By Coach Nic’s second season, the swim and dive team won its first dual meet in 15 years. Since then, he’s catapulted the program into success with record-breaking, undefeated seasons and even a cover feature in Sports Illustrated. While today it’s the only NCAA Division I swimming and diving program from an HBCU, it also happens to be one of the best in the country. Just last month, the program made history yet again with dual Northeast Conference Swimming and Diving Championship titles for the men’s and women’s teams. 

On this episode, Dr. Benjamin Talton, director of MSRC and On the Yard host, sits down with Nicholas Askew, director of swimming & diving and tennis, to talk about the remarkable transformation of the swim and dive team. They discuss Coach Nic’s blueprint to rebuilding the program, his own swimming legacy at Howard, and what Howard’s swim and dive team means for representation in a sport that’s historically lacked diversity. 

Episode Guide:

00:00 Howard’s Swim Team Hits Rock Bottom: The Losing Streak Begins

01:40 Coach Nicholas Askew Steps Up: Why He Wanted the Program Cut (and What Changed)

06:35 Taking Over in 2014: Rebuilding the Team From the Ground Up

08:11 Changing the Environment: Staff, Facilities, and Athlete Buy-In

12:06 Winning in the Classroom: GPA Standards, Study Hall, and Full-Time Coaching

17:46 Sports Illustrated & ‘Battle at the Burr’: How the Hype Became History

22:03 Why Stay at Howard? Legacy, 100 Years of History, and Nic’s Origin Story

26:40 Bigger Than Howard: HBCU Swim History and Representation in the Sport

32:10 Building the Pipeline: Camps, Learn-to-Swim, Community Impact

On the Yard is a production of The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

Why academics comes first in this program
14:31: Academic success is the number one priority of this program, and if you're only coming to be an athlete here, then this is not a good choice for you. Because we're going to be, you know, really expecting high academic marks, because at the end of the day, Howard's love language is academics.

On Coach Nick’s Howard Journey
25:53: When I got to Howard, to get that feeling of being really filled up in a space that I didn't even know that it was a void there, it was amazing to be around this Black excellence in the pool, in the classroom, on the Yard. And that's really what helped me continue to thrive in this environment, because when you're on campus, you need some motivation and inspiration, and you don't have to look far when you're at Howard.

What’s really holding swimming back?
29:03: One is that there's that underlying myth that Black people don't swim. Two is really this country's ugly history with people of color and water and water spaces. And three is really looking at the accessibility of not just having a community pool, but also having spaces where you can continue to develop through the pathways.

Show Links: 

• The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center
• Follow MSRC on Instagram and YouTube
• “Howard Swimming and Diving Makes History with Dual NEC Championships” | The Dig
• Battle at the Burr
• “How the Only All-Black Team in College Swimming Became the Sport's Hottest Ticket” | Sports Illustrated 
• Follow the Swim and Dive team on Instagram 

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Howard University’s origins, in every respect, aligned with the birth of a new nation. And its role in shaping that new nation and the course of American history cannot be overstated. 

On this episode of On the Yard, Dr. Benjamin Talton, director of MSRC, is joined by Sonja Woods, university archivist for MSRC, and Howard alum Abdur-Rahman Muhammad. Together, they discuss the socio-political context surrounding Howard’s founding, and the historical figures who dreamed of a university that transcended racial and gender lines. 

Episode Guide:

00:00 The Founding of Howard University

01:36 Guest Introductions and Personal Howard Connections

02:54 Howard's Unique Position Among HBCUs

06:29 Early Challenges and Visionaries

18:58 The Role of the Freedmen's Bureau

25:44 Howard's Legacy and Influence

32:31 The Push for a Black President

36:18 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

On the Yard is a production of The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

Howard was a vision way ahead of this time

07:06: [Abdur-Rahman Muhammad] It appears that Howard was conceived as a racially integrated university, you know, that that was actually the vision. It was an anomaly. It was an anomaly. It was far ahead of its time. People at the time didn't know what to make of it. You know, is this a Black university? Is this a white university? I mean, what's going on here? You know, you have to remember, Howard was founded almost a year and a half before the ratification of the 14th Amendment. Okay? I mean, just think about that, because education, the college degree, it supplies you with more than the ability to prosper in the job market. Education is a sign of social status, right? Even today, maybe one out of 10 people have a college… I mean, to have a college degree really meant that you were, kind of, a somebody.

Abdur’s Howard origin story

01:42: [Abdur-Rahman Muhammad] Well, I first stepped foot on Howard's campus in 1979. That's the first time I visited the campus. And I enrolled the next year, 1980, in the Center for Academic Reinforcement, as it was called back then, the CAR Center. From Providence, Rhode Island, originally, I was part of the class of 1984, although that's not exactly when I walked. You know, that's one of those Howard stories. I actually took my degree sometime later, but I was, you know, class of 1984. I was here with so many illustrious personalities at that time, and I had a wonderful Howard experience and just fell in love with this venerable institution, this magical place.

Howard was unique from the very beginning

04:01: [Sonja Woods] What makes Howard different from the very beginning is that it was, unlike Morehouse and Spelman, co-ed from the beginning. There's a committee of founders at Howard. There's 17 men... And then we're in D.C., so it's a federal location, different type of municipality. It's the South, but it's the federal city.

Show Links: 

• The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center

Follow MSRC on Instagram and YouTube

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On this episode of On the Yard, President Johnson’s legacy comes to life – from his days as a Baptist minister to leading Howard through the most pivotal time of the 20th century. Dr. Benjamin Talton, director of MSRC, is joined by Dr. Krista Johnson, professor and director of Howard’s Center for African Studies, and Sonja Woods, university archivist for MSRC. 

Together, they discuss Mordecai Wyatt Johnson’s historic tenure as Howard’s first Black president, including his initiatives to position Howard as a global intellectual hub, his promotion of academic freedom, and his admiration for global figures like Gandhi, which shaped Howard's involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.

Episode Guide:

00:00 Introduction to Mordecai Wyatt Johnson

02:15 Early Life and Background

04:23 Howard University During President Johnson's Tenure

07:03 President Johnson's Vision and Institutional Impact

09:30 Challenges and Controversies

13:30 International Influence and Nonviolent Action

31:55 Legacy and Influence on Future Leaders

36:24 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

On the Yard is a production of The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

Mordecai’s legacy lives in the leaders who came after him

[35:09] Sonja Woods: I think there's so many books and articles and things that need to be written coming out of the presidential papers, a serious one thing, though, is the number of college presidents that came out of his faculty, during his tenure, the number of college presidents. We have Dwight Holmes went on, and he was a Howard alum. He went on to be president of Morgan. Charles Wesley was the president of two HBCUs. Benjamin Mays left him, was president, Morehouse. William Stewart Nelson was the college president of two HBCUs. We got to throw Jennifer in there, Franklin Jennifer. We got to throw him in there. But that's minor compared to these other guys, who were alum and faculty sometimes, mostly faculty. But it's clear what they learned or what they were able to absorb from Mordecai, just looking at their titles, their roles, their positions at Howard.

Howard’s global impact started at the top

[06:23]: Dr. Krista Johnson: The more I have been digging into the intellectual and the scholarly scholarship of those two individuals in particular, but also the climate at Howard at that time, the more I came to understand that these were remarkable individuals, but there was also an institution and there was an institutional architecture that emerged here at Howard University that nurtured these intellectuals at the time and also really created an environment to have discourse and dialogue and conversation across races, across international boundaries. And much of that, it can be attributed to the first president, Mordecai Wyatt Johnson, who was, I think, had the foresight to position Howard as a global institution and an institution of global consequence.

On the golden era of Black academia

[01:41]: Dr. Krista Johnson: President Johnson presided over Howard University during really a fascinating time in its history, and really a growth era…The golden era of Black academia at Howard in particular, where you really just had some of the who's who of Black intelligentsia that were either faculty here at Howard or who were orbiting around Howard in terms of the conferences, the intellectual engagement that was happening right here on The Yard in those decades.

Show Links: 

• The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center
• Follow MSRC on Instagram and YouTube

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Thanks to a partnership with the Gordon Parks Foundation in 2022, Howard University is now home to the second-largest collection of Gordon Parks photographs. Many of those images were displayed in an exhibit at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center this past fall titled, Temples of Hope, Rituals of Survival: Gordon Parks and Black Religious Life. The exhibit was curated by Dr. Melanee Harvey, associate professor of art history at Howard, and attracted the largest number of visitors to the Howard University Museum in its history. 

On this episode of On the Yard, Dr. Benjamin Talton sits down with Dr. Harvey to discuss Gordon Parks’ life, legacy, and work capturing and preserving the 20th-century Black experience. They also chat about future Howard exhibits showcasing Parks’ photos, and the incredible opportunity this collection presents for students studying visual arts and humanities at Howard. 

Temples of Hope, Rituals of Survival: Gordon Parks and Black Religious Life, runs through the end of January 2026.

Episode Guide:

00:00 Show Introduction

00:50 Meet Dr. Melanee Harvey

01:57 Gordon Parks: A Pioneering Photographer

04:03 Gordon Parks' Impact and Legacy

06:16 Incorporating Gordon Parks into Education

07:46 Temples of Hope: Curating the Exhibit

08:28 Exploring Gordon Parks' Religious Imagery

16:44 Gordon Parks and the Nation of Islam

22:56 Gordon Parks' Global Perspective

32:12 Future Plans and Exhibitions

On the Yard is a production of The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

Visualizing black religious practice

[08:20] Dr. Melanee Harvey: One of my scholarly areas of interest has been examining visually how Black religious practice is documented. So, you know, this exhibition really doesn’t emerge from my interest in putting up on the wall images of Black religion.

[08:34] Dr. Benjamin Talton: Now, is this memoirish? A little bit, because you have a religious background?

[08:38] Dr. Melanee Harvey: Well, if you say it that way, not memoirish, but I will say I feel like I had the privilege to grow up the daughter of a minister, but also my mother’s father was a Baptist minister, so I’m like second-generation preacher’s kid. And so, I think with that in mind, I’ve always been in church spaces. And once I got to graduate school and started studying African American architecture and American art, those images and spaces were completely absent. So, it’s been a focus of my career to, kind of, fill that hole and also begin to probe and interrogate the way that images of religious practice have been used in America.

The importance of study sets in the humanities, visual and liberal arts

[04:54] Study sets are so central to I would say the humanities and visual art instruction at liberal arts institutions. And these are collections that, for all intents and purposes, do not leave the institution and are anchored there to really be study tools, right? Lessons of instruction. And I think that’s really how we plan on using it. I think, although we have introduced this exhibition that demonstrates community and spirituality, there’s still so many thematic topics to address within the collection.

Gordon Parks understood his power

[15:51] He [Gordon Parks] is often quoted as saying, you know, “The camera was my choice of weapon,” right? So, what is it? I think even in that choice of weapon, that means he understood his power, right? In image making, telling a story, and documenting a presence.

Show Links: 

• Gordon Parks Foundation Collection | Digital Howard
• Temples of Hope, Rituals of Survival: Gordon Parks and Black Religious Life Exhibit
• The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center
• Follow MSRC on Instagram and YouTube

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In this inaugural episode, the power of protest and its place in the fabric and legacy of Howard’s history is explored. Dr. Benjamin Talton, director of MSRC, is joined by Dr. Greg Carr, professor of African American Studies, and Dr. Dana Williams, professor of English Literature and dean of the graduate school. 

Together, they discuss the 1968 student protests that led to a symbolic second founding of Howard University, how those protests birthed essential programs like Jazz Studies and the Institute for Arts and Humanities, and the enduring impact of protests at Howard from the past century.

Episode Guide:

00:00 The Impact of the 1968 Protest: A New Era for Howard University

03:21 Reflections on Citizenship and the Black University

06:07 Historical Context: Protests and Militancy at Howard

17:19 The Legacy of Nathan Hare and Black Studies

20:03 Striving Toward a Black University: Community and Liberation

24:00 The Institute for Arts and Humanities: A Vision for the Future

27:47 Challenges and Changes in Black Education

29:17 The Role of Howard University

32:20 Institutional Memory and Identity

42:39 The Importance of Preservation

45:58 Future Directions and Goals

On the Yard is a production of The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

An institution that is windows to America and the world

09:34: [Benjamin Talton] That's part of the conversation I want to continue to have with this podcast is that it's not just about Howard or other black colleges and universities, because all of our institutions are windows into America and windows into the world. And what I'm really proud of Howard about, and Lincoln and Fisk as well, is that it's always been globally black, right? Since we were founded in 1867, our first African students were graduated in 1870. So, from the very beginning, we've always been global in our blackness, right?

Protesting have ideals of our own

02:53: [Dana Williams] The question really is like, all right, now that the question of citizenship is, “settled,” because of course it never has been and probably will never be, what will be our own ideals? Will we adopt American ideals, or will we have any of our own? And I think part of what we see coming out of that protest is a real push to have ideals of our own.

Pushing for the global concept of the black university

09:18: [Greg Carr] Let me just say, they weren't pushing for the black American university…They were pushing for the black university. That's a global concept. And that runs squarely against the sensibility of a lot of universities in this country, including, quite frankly, a lot of HBCUs.

Show Links: 

• The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center
• Follow MSRC on Instagram and YouTube

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 Since 1914, MSRC has preserved the stories that define Black life around the world, including photographs, rare books, letters, political archives, film, and everyday materials that reveal lives filled with love, brilliance, struggle, creativity, and imagination.

This podcast brings you into the treasured collection with each episode pulling out an archival gem and diving deep into its significance. With the help of intellectual scholars, cultural, and literary voices, MSRC staff connect the past to the present. This is Howard’s history as a window into the world and the global Black experience.

Step “On The Yard” January 2026 wherever you get your podcasts.  

On the Yard is a production of The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University and is produced by University FM.

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