Morgan James “Mwalim” Peters

“I’m working on a documentary, can I hook this camera up to a digital output?”
-- Yeah, you can. I’ll bring in my cables from home.

“I want to talk to you about something.”
-- I got a minute, what’s up?

“Can you sing this song for me real quick? I need it on tape.”
-- Pass me the recorder. [He sings a chorus of Parliament’s P.Funk]

“Mwalim, I’m working on this new story, I want to show it to you later.”
-- Great, I wanna read it. Oh, and I have some articles you may want to read; I’ll send 'em to you.

Take a short walk with Professor Morgan James Peters from Frederick  Douglass Unity House (FDUH) where he holds his office hours, to the Campus Center, and you will inevitably be interrupted by a number of people seeking a moment of his time. Peters, better known as Mwalim (mwah-leem), which means teacher in Arabic and Aramaic, is rounding out his second year at the university and is very much connected to it. An elder community member, having watched an earlier interchange between Mwalim and his students quietly says to himself, “That Peters is a class act.”

I'm an New World Griot--griot being a collective term for keepers of oral/intellectual traditions in West Africa. Putting what I do into Western terms makes me a professor.

An assistant professor in both the university’s English department and the interdisciplinary African/African American (AAA) studies program, Mwalim views himself not solely as an academic, but also as a mentor. He knows very well the importance of mentors; his own career was strongly guided by two that he met while in college.

My mentors in theater are Jim Spruill, a professor at Boston University and co-founder of New African Company (a Black theater company based in Boston, MA), and Linda Patton, a playwright and Artistic Director Emeritus of New African Company.

My last year of undergraduate, I joined New African Company. I was really interested in writing plays and storytelling. Ironically, acting is my least favorite part of theater and film, but Jim and Linda made me study acting, as well as how to teach acting. It wound up serving me in a number of ways: I found it did improve my playwriting and
directing skills because I now understand theater from every angle.

It also helped keep him gainfully employed.

I’ve never been without work because I know how to teach acting. I’m one of the few acting professionals who moved to New York and never had to wait tables or tend bars.

Mwalim graduated from New York's Music and Art High School , studying viola and piano, and has his MS in film and his BA in music composition and history from Boston University. He is currently working on his MFA in playwriting at Goddard. In addition to being inspired by his two mentors, who are Goddard alumni, he realized his goal was to remain active in the film and theater communities.

When I was trying to decide to do an MFA or doctorate, it all came down to this: Do I want to be the guy who writes plays or who talks about them? I decided I wanted to write them.

He stresses how important it is for students to not just talk about their work, but actually do it.

I teach practical application of the film world…of drama. The classes I’m teaching enhance the [theoretical] drama and film classes students are taking. What I teach is digital filmmaking, using digital technology and video production equipment. The approach of filmmakers versus video production is slightly different. I tend to teach from a filmmaker’s point of view, paying more attention to lighting, camera angles, color temperatures, overall scene composition.

In all of my classes I use portfolio and composition instead of exams as my evaluation tools. I’d like them [the students] to leave with a reel that can get them a job or internship, or at least get them in a position that will get them a step closer to a job or internship.

I was awarded a grant from ITAD [Instructional Technology for Academic Development] to create Random Cuts Cyber Cinema. When the project is completed, people can download short digital films shot by UMass video production students and by professional digital artists.

There are three things I try to communicate to my students: One: tools of production, two: how to explore their own imagination, and three: how to actually eat while doing this.

So just how do you eat and survive while working as an artist?

I worked in New York and Boston editing music video and documentaries. A lot of those wound up on MTV, VH1, and the History Channel. I was doing the work I was trained to do and I was happy doing what I was doing for a living. That’s the benefit of working for production houses. In turn, when you’re working at an editing house, you have off-hours access to high-end equipment for your own stuff. It also taught me how to package my material. 

A long ways from being “the poor slub” who cut hours and hours of film from someone else’s documentaries and videos, nowadays Mwalim maintains an active career:

• as award-winning playwright, filmmaker and author;
• as director of the Oversoul Theatre Collective based in New Bedford and Mashpee, MA;
• doing voiceovers and music for Chumbies, a literacy DVD by Topper Carew (former executive producer of Martin, comedian Martin Lawrence’s television show);
• working on an album called Bronx Jazz: In Search of the Last Kangol;
• finishing a documentary on contemporary Mashpee Wampanoag culture;
• writing a play called Wetu in the City, a comedy about a band of Waquasiq who have a reservation in the middle of the South Bronx;
• collaborating on As Told From the Corner, a New African Company collection of short plays (written by him and another playwright, John Adekoje), that's making its performance rounds in preparation for the annual National Black Theatre Festival in North Carolina;
• editing Whispers from the Cedars, an anthology of New England Native American writers being published by Talking Drum Press; and
• producing an oral traditions media project for the Boston Children’s Museum’s Wampanoag education program.

He's also working on a few projects to raise academic and individual consciousness about Black art and culture here on campus.

[Professor Emeritus] Jim Nee and I are collaborating with the AAA program and the FDUH on a project called the New Diaspora Drama Lab (NDDL), our own little version of August Wilson's national initiative to preserve and continue the development and presentation of dramatic performance works, by, for and about people of the African Diaspora. One of the goals of the project is to attract Black theater professionals and scholars to UMass and the area as a place to develop and present creative and critical works-in-progress. This will provide practical experiences and training in theatre production for UMass Dartmouth students.

To nurture this creative atmosphere, Mwalim is also:

• faculty advisor for 20 Cent Fiction Productions, a student-run theater group, and Brothers and Sisters United, a black student group.
• hosting the New Diaspora Drama Festival at the university’s New Bedford Professional and Continuing Education Center, and
• presenting talks and lectures on the role of the performing arts (music, drama, dance and spoken-word) in the progression of Black Nationalism over the last three centuries.

The work of an active writer/filmmaker is non-stop, so Mwalim understands first hand the demands of working college students. He juggles his time as a professor with the demands of being a working artist and writer, a student working on his MFA, and a full-time single parent of a toddler. He also understands the importance of creating an atmosphere of diversity, which isn’t just a racial issue. He quips, "Ever try changing a toddler in a men’s room? We don’t get the nice little changing tables that the ladies rooms have. We usually don’t get changing tables at all.”

Mwalim holds his office hours at Unity House, in order for students to see his presence, and for him to be accessible to them for conversation and relationship building.

When I was student at BU, between the MLK Center and the Afro-American Studies department we had ample opportunities for exchange with and receive mutual respect from Black faculty and staff.

Mwalim, self described as a Black Wampanoag (his father was Mashpee Wampanoag and his mother of a Barbadian family), uses his cultural background and experiences to create an atmosphere of comfort for all students, particularly students of color. In addition to teaching, he works on programming for the African/African-American (AAA) Studies program and Frederick Douglass Unity House.

A lot of dialogue has been going on with staff and faculty affiliated with Unity House and AAA to put together programming and presentations on Afrocentric scholarship to stimulate discussions. Topics that address the common experiences of Black people as a whole in New England, and specifically Southeastern Massachusetts need to be discussed and addressed. The only time we seem to talk about things are when they reach crisis proportions. We really need to look at how well we are preparing young Black people to go out and deal with the social, political and economic realities of this society.

Another thing I’m trying to do is work with College Now, Admissions and the Mashpee Wampanoag Indian Tribal Council to bring in more Native students to campus and to reach out to the existing native students.

Mwalim notes that “there’s a general feeling of diversity that’s reflected on this campus…we do have Frederick Douglass Unity House and we do have the AAA program.”  He also reflects that there’s always more, much, much more, for each of us to do.

 Last Updated On: 8/17/06