Howard University freshman Brock Montgomery is taking the ballroom dance world by storm as a two-time national champion, and now he’s aiming to introduce more Black people to the sport with his goal of establishing the first collegiate-level competitive ballroom team at an HBCU. 

Montgomery, an international affairs major and dance minor from Charlotte, North Carolina, has spent most of his life training to become an elite Latin ballroom dancer alongside his younger sister, Charli Ana, who was also admitted into Howard and will join the incoming fall 2026 class. Together, the pair are the highest-ranked African American Latin ballroom couple in the country. The duo, known as “B&C” on the dancefloor, secured a world ranking placement within the top 50 dancers in the Youth Latin category at the 2022 World DanceSport Federation World Championship in Italy as part of the USA World Team.   

Now, Mongomery is setting his sights on bringing ballroom dance to Howard by establishing the university’s first Latin ballroom dance team.  

“Collegiate-level ballroom dancing is really big in places like Utah,” said Montgomery. “Those collegiate teams offer scholarships, and they take students to places like England every year to compete. I want to bring that to Howard. Why should Howard not have that? I want to put Howard on that stage and introduce Black people to the sport because people don’t really understand that this sport can make just as much money as any of the other professional sports teams.” 

Bringing Latin Ballroom to Howard 

Montgomery was recently granted the official greenlight to establish a ballroom team at Howard from USA Dance Inc., the national governing body for competitive ballroom dancing in the United States. He’s currently working with university administrators to finalize the team’s framework and to officially launch the club. Montgomery shared that students have already begun to express excitement about the possibility of adding a new dance team to the university. Tammy McCants, director of enrollment and academic services in Howard’s Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts, has signed on to be the advisor of the team, which could launch as early as spring 2027. 

“This is an overlooked avenue for students interested in pursuing professional sports as a career,” Montgomery noted. “I want to teach people and share my skills while spreading the sport to other Black people as well.”  

Montgomery’s initial introduction to ballroom dancing came after his parents saw an ad offering ballroom dance classes for kids in a magazine while they were waiting in a doctor’s office. At age six, Montgomery began taking lessons, which initially began as a way for him and his sister to “get our energy out.”  

“From there, it snowballed into where I am today, traveling and competing for dance,” Montgomery explained. In addition to their world ranking, the Montgomery siblings won the 2016 U.S. National Youth Ballroom Championships in Utah and the 2018 USA Dance National Championships in Baltimore. In 2025, the Montgomery siblings placed within the top 24 teams that competed in the U.S. National Amateur DanceSport Championships. 

Montgomery shared that he began to take a serious interest in becoming a professional dancer after his first international trip to compete. 

“My partner and I were always serious about it, but it really clicked for me when we took our first trip overseas to England in 2022 and we spent a month there training and competing.” 

While in England, Montgomery and his sister trained with dancer Shirley Ballas, who’s currently the head judge of the popular British dance competition show “Strictly Come Dancing.” 

“Ballas introduced us to this other side of ballroom dancing that I didn’t know existed,” said Montgomery. “The ballroom dance world is really small, and it’s all about who you know and what you know. With us being one of few Black people in it, people weren’t willing to tell us the things that we needed to know. For me and my partner, we said to ourselves ‘this is what we want to pursue.’ And from there, it just kept going.” 

The Next Generation of Black Ballroom Dancers 

Being one of few Black Americans in Latin ballroom dancing has fueled Montgomery to excel to the highest levels of the sport. He shared that being one of few Black competitors has come with serious challenges and moments of discrimination. Montgomery recalled an incident in 2022 in which he and his sister were called a racial slur from another competitor while competing in London.  

“My sister and I were called the ‘N’ word minutes before we had to step on the dancefloor and compete,” Montgomery said of the incident. “We really have to be mentally strong in this sport because we don’t see anyone else like us. I’ve never seen two Black people competing together, until now. There are younger [Black] couples coming up now, which I’m really excited about that, but for my entire career, it’s just been me and my sister. We’ve had to bear the brunt of all these different coaches from different countries and what they think about us and how they think about us.” 

The costs associated with the sport are another barrier to access, Montgomery said, adding that his parents spent about $10,000 for training lessons in England when he and his sister competed in London. Additional costs for travel accommodations, costumes, and competition fees also come with a costly price tag. Montgomery expressed his gratitude to his parents for their continued support, saying “they sacrificed a lot just so that we could dance. I’m really grateful to them.”   

Despite these obstacles, Montgomery is emboldened to continue to compete in hopes of one day being crowned a world champion. He added that being in many non-Black spaces was a motivating factor for him to pursue an education at Howard.   

“I’ve been in white spaces my whole life and I’m still in white spaces because of dance — I’ve never really been around my people en masse,” said Montgomery. “Howard was my number one choice. I didn’t want to go anywhere else. Every day I get to walk on The Yard or look at Founders Library, I can’t help but think that I’m so grateful to be here because there’s people that don’t have this opportunity to do what I’m doing.” 

Montgomery took a brief pause from participating in dance competitions after enrolling at Howard last fall. He said he’s looking forward to rejoining competitions when his sister makes her way to Howard’s campus later this year. Montgomery’s even trying his hand at training the next generation of aspiring ballroom dancers.  

“I started teaching last year, and my student and I actually won a competition together and then I had to move away for college,” he said. “I think it’s very unique, my experience, and the way that I’m able to teach because I’m able to see what I didn’t have and what I still don’t have. What I’m learning now with my coaches, I’m able to give to my students.”