If this doesn’t take you back to “A Different World”, I don’t know what will. Philadelphia Printworks, which was discovered by Maryum Pugh, has created a line of six shirts that represent fictional colleges modeled around historic black leaders. The six historians they chose are Marcus Garvey, George Washington Carver, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, James Baldwin, and Audre Lorde. The name of the clothing line is School of Thought.

Maryum collaborate Donte Neal in creating these thought provoking shirts. It’s about creating positive imagery and they hit it out of the park with this one! They had a hard time narrowing it down to just six but looked for black leaders that contributed in different ways in different fields. For example, Carver Agricultural University for George Washington Carver’s scientific research and the Garvey Industrial Institution for Marcus Garvey’s economic philosophy.

They plan to expand on the idea by creating more “colleges” with leaders of other races and ethnicities.

Pugh acknowledges that people of color are typically depicted in a negative light therefore the School of Thought is just the first of many ways to instill positive imagery into communities of color. I also believe School of Thought will help black children become more knowledgeable of their history so they will know more than just Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Rosa Parks, who were amazing leaders but our history is so rich and no one should be overlooked.