New Directions was published quarterly by the Department of University Relations and Publications at Howard University. The publication features articles on a wide range of topics including race relations in America, the state of black education, the Iran/Iraq war, and convocations and Commencement's at Howard. Particular attention was paid to events happening on the continent of Africa. Of note are discussions of the famines of the late 1980s, developments in Tanzania, and Pan-Africanism. Articles were written by notables such as Earl G. Graves, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, and Vernon Jordan. Speeches reprinted include those by John Hope Franklin, Ronald Walters, Edward "Ted" Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Ed Bradley.