Black in America 2 Parent and Teacher Discussion Guide

CNN's "Black in America 2" CNN continues its investigation of the most challenging issues facing African-Americans.

CNN's Soledad O'Brien journeys to South Africa and criss-crosses the U.S., reporting on groundbreaking solutions that are transforming the black experience in America.

O'Brien uncovers pioneers who are making a difference: people inspiring volunteerism, programs that are improving access to quality health care and education, and leaders working to address financial struggles and develop strong families.

CNN has online free Discussion Questions and Learning Activity to facilitate a conversation with your middle and high school-aged students.

Black in America 2: Part I - Today's Pioneers
Program overview: In "Today's Pioneers," O'Brien profiles community organizers across the country who are facilitating progress at a local level. These pioneers address health, education, and other critical needs of the black community.
Black in America 2: Today's Pioneers airs in HDTV on Wednesday, July 22 at 8:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. EDT.
Click here to access Discussion Questions for Black in America 2: Today's Pioneers.

Black in America 2: Part II - Tomorrow's Leaders
Program overview: "Tomorrow's Leaders" focuses on people who are developing future African-American leaders. The importance of education, mentoring programs and diverse experiences are explored as black Americans strive for success in a competitive world. Black in America 2: Tomorrow's Leaders airs in HDTV on Thursday, July 23 at 8:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. EDT.
Click here to access Discussion Questions for Black in America 2: Tomorrow's Leaders.

O'Brien Kicks Off Student News Literacy Project

Earlier this month, CNN’s Soledad O’Brien announced the kick-off of the News Literacy Project at the Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School (WCCS) in Brooklyn, New York. The school enrolls about 250 students who are accepted by lottery and drawn from throughout New York City. All of the students are from minority groups.

The program promises to help teach high-school students how to discern fact from fiction on the web.

"Part of the job is to be a truthful witness to the things you see around you," said O'Brien. She said she seeks "to tell the stories to the best of my ability as fairly as possible."

CNN offers a daily Student News program with supplementary online materials for students and their teachers.

Students need to be able to find sources of verifiable news on the internet and this program offers students of WCCS the chance to receive valuable training in that area. The New York Times, ABC News, USA Today and the CBS News program 60 Minutes are participating in the new program tailored to educate high school students in this art.

More than 75 well-known journalists, some of whom have won the most prestigious awards in the industry, have volunteered to take part in the program. The journalists will discuss things like why news should matter to young people and what the First Amendment and free media mean in a democracy. The curriculum also addresses such new media tools as Google, blogs and Wikipedia.

Four major national journalism organizations have also endorsed the News Literacy Project: the American Society of Newspaper Editors; the National Association of Black Journalists; the Asian American Journalists Association, and Investigative Reporters and Editors.

Soledad Reports from Soweto, South Africa

CNN's Behind the Scenes series lets correspondents share their experiences in covering news and analyze the stories behind the events.

In a recent post, Soledad O'Brien writes about her travels with 30 Brooklyn, NY schoolchildren on a volunteer mission to serve the impoverished and AIDS orphans in South Africa.

Here is an excerpt from Soledad's report:

"It's late Sunday morning inside a cavernous Salvation Army Church in Soweto, South Africa. Services, complete with African and traditional music, have just finished and a catchy drum beat with a distinctly American hip-hop sound is coming from the stage.

The group of teenagers dancing around the drums is 8,000 miles and an 18-hour plane ride from their New York home. They are mostly from Bushwick, Brooklyn -- a community of about 109,000 people only five miles from Manhattan.

For some of these kids, it's their first time away from home.

Unfamiliar with Bushwick? It's mostly a working class neighborhood where families have often struggled.

For years it was a community with a thriving drug trade, severely under-achieving schools, extreme poverty and a staggering rate of teenage pregnancy. It was ravaged by fires and looting during the summer of 1977 and hit hard by the crack epidemic in the 1980s.

Bushwick is recovering now, but half of the children under age 18 still live below the poverty line. A quarter of the adults never make it past the ninth grade and more than half never graduate from high school.

The children on this trip to South Africa are what educators and social workers call "at-risk" -- at risk of having babies as teenagers; at risk of never finishing high school or achieving their dreams; at risk of never knowing the world beyond their neighborhood.

Thirty of these children, between the ages of 12 to 16, have been paired up with college-aged mentors and brought to South Africa by Malaak Compton-Rock, the wife of comedian Chris Rock. She brought them to volunteer -- to serve the impoverished and the AIDS orphans in this country with the highest HIV-infected population in the world."

Read the full article at http://www.cnn.com/

LEDA Town Hall: The Voice of Generation Next

NEW YORK, May 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/

LEDA, Leadership Enterprise for a Diverse America, proudly announces its inaugural LEDA Town Hall: The Voice of Generation Next, scheduled to take place Thursday, May 22nd, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the New York City headquarters of Google.

Noted CNN anchor and special news correspondent Soledad O'Brien will moderate the event. In partnership with Scoop08, the first national student publication dedicated to the 2008 election, LEDA will conduct national online polls of young and undecided voters, the results of which will be announced at the Town Hall.