Source: Third World Cinema

If you were seeing a movie in the ’70′s, chances are you were going to be watching a blaxploitation film. That was until Claudine came along in 1974. The movie used unique vehicles to tell a story that had largely been ignored in cinema. Hopefully, you’ve seen this classic. If so, it’s certainly a story you won’t forget. And though you know the story and remembered all the outrageous moments from the movie, we bet you don’t know the behind these scenes secrets.

Howard University has groomed some of the best female talent in acting, literature and for the world stage, and the school has also had the same success when it comes to their male students. These 10 prominent men have studied in the school’s classrooms (and cut a rug at the Homecoming festivities…) and have gone on to do amazing things.

thehairpin.com

Sean “P. Diddy” Combs
Diddy has called himself many names over the years, but each version of himself has always been proud to hype up the time he spent at the famed HBCU. He was majoring in Business when he dropped out in 1989, but has given back to the school in various ways. He was part of the Howard Homecoming in 1995 alongside the Notorious B.I.G., he keeps close ties with current students and even offered support as students protested over housing and financial aid packages in 2009.

Source: Kickstarter.com

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee are a classic Hollywood couple and their grandson, Muta’Ali Muhammad, wants to bring their story of love and light to life with a feature-length documentary titled, Life’s Essentials with Ruby Dee. Muhammad describes his vision as a “documentary style film about love, art and activism [that] tells the story of one of the most enduring couples of our times, Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee. “According to a description on Kickstarter.com:

Ossie & Ruby’s achievements in love (sustained marriage for 57 years), art (pioneers in black theater) and activism (always using their influence to help “the people”) parallel nearly a century of change in America. With this story being told through the lens of their grandson (filmmaker), an innate hunger to learn everything possible about Ossie & Ruby’s lives and apply it to today’s fight to preserve love, art and activism is always present.

Based on candid questions, revealing conversations, and never-before-seen family archival material, Life’s Essentials with Ruby Dee shares the wisdom of the ages with this present generation and carries the legacy of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee forward in history for the first time in feature documentary form.

Muhammad is attempting to raise money to create the film which is why he started a petition on Kickstarter. He’s attempting to reach his $50,000 goal in the next 37 days and if it worked for Issa Rae and Awkward Black Girl, we think it can work for him.

Check out a snippet of what the film will show in the clip below and tell us what you think. Will you support this effort?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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While there are no official statistics on Hollywood marriage, a fool can see that the celebrity divorce rate is even more out the box than the already-high one for us regular folk. That’s why these long lasting Black power couples give us the ‘warm fuzzies’.  We salute them for keeping their love strong in an industry that makes healthy relationships almost impossible to sustain. If you need a little inspiration when it comes to love today, check out our list of long-lasting Black Hollywood couples!

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