“To have power doesn’t mean you get to be mean or make people feel lesser; having power is empowering people,” Debbie Allen told a crowd of eager listeners at Hillman Honors’ Women on the Rise event in Los Angeles Sunday afternoon. The April 14 gathering was the brainchild of Hillman Grad Productions’ Head of Cultural Marketing Marquis Phifér, and a full circle moment for Lena Waithe who named her production company after the fictional college in the sitcom A Different World, for which Allen was showrunner and producer for 122 episodes.
“A Different world felt like an escape for me,” Waithe said during a panel discussion moderated by Allen. “I was, obviously, not even in high school when I was watching it, but I was experiencing college life and what that meant. And it meant community. It meant chosen family. It also meant being involved in the politics of the day. It taught me so much; not just about who I was as a person of color, but what it meant to be a good friend. What it meant to be not just a good student, but a good teacher.”
Waithe was joined on the panel by Jojo T. Gibbs, star of her coming-of-age BET series Twenties, D. Smith, producer and director of the Sundance Audience Award-winning film Kokomo City, and Independent Spirit Award Winning director A.V. Rockwell of A Thousand and One.
During the event, which was hosted by NAACP Image Award nominee Gia Peppers, and attended by aspiring creatives as well as actresses Ashley Blain Featherson-Jenkins, Christina Elmore Duke, and Aisha Hinds, each woman talked about their entry point to Hollywood and the key learnings they carry with them as they move to their next tier of success.
Smith, a former Grammy-nominated music producer, spoke about her experience sleeping on friends’ couches for three years after being shunned by…
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