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Keywords: CNN, Black in America, stereotype, racism, discrimination, diversity, DiversityInc, fatherhood, single mothers, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

On April 4, 1968, the day Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, Butch Warren was one of a few Black high-school students attending Little Rock, Arkansas' predominantly white Central High School. After students learned of King's assassination, Warren remembers the jeers from white students.

"Goody, goody, your Jesus is dead," went the taunts, according to Warren.

Forty years later, Warren is a successful high-school superintendent, a devoted father and a husband. He and his family live in one of Little Rock's ritzy neighborhoods, and his three sons are also successful.

But Warren's sons have struggled with what it is to be Black. Their story and others were featured in the second of CNN's two-day, four-hour documentary, "Black in America," hosted by Soledad O'Brien, which first aired Wednesday and Thursday.

Justin Warren, a college student and budding musician, remembers in high school trying to act stereotypically Black. He wore his hair in braids and listened to rap music. His brother Jonathan, an assistant district attorney in Arkansas, remembers being teased in high school because he was smart.

"If you're Black and get an education and study, you're a sellout," Jonathan said. "So I was a sellout."

Unlike the first installment of "Black in America," which felt like a whirlwind tour through everything from poverty and murder to dating and biracial relationships, the second installment was more focused. It revealed the struggles Black men face in education, finding a job, developing a career and further defining what it means to be Black.

Poverty is the cause of much of the ills that plague Black men, and this was addressed by Ellis Cose, a Newsweek commentator and contributing editor. Cose, who grew up in a Chicago housing project, told O'Brien that a disregard for education and the number of absent fathers in general in the Black community can be attributed to poverty.

"It comes from concentrated poverty," said Cose. "Young Black men get a million messages saying, 'You're not supposed to be in school and won't succeed in school.'"

The messages come from many different sources, such as school counselors and teachers who harbor stereotypical views of Black male students, rap music that mostly promotes promiscuity and drug dealing, and media that emphasizes crime--from local news to TV shows to movies. All of these tell young Black men that education is not a "Black thing," Cose told O'Brien.

Said Chris Shern, a 25-year-old Black prisoner in California's San Quentin Prison: "Everybody around me was either dope dealers, prostitutes or some was athletes, or you was a janitor. If I knew that there was another way out or another way to gain the successes I wanted without committing crime, then I think I would have took that route."

Though there are bright spots, most of the statistics in "Black in America" are bleak:

• The percentage of Black men who have graduated has quadrupled over the last 50 years.
• Of the Black males who drop out, 60 percent will end up behind bars.
• One-in-three Black men will have a criminal record in his lifetime.
• There are currently nearly 1 million Black men in prison.
• The unemployment rate for Black men is 10 percent, more than twice the rate for white men.

The documentary illustrated how Black-male stereotypes born out of racism are a major contributing factor to the plight Black men face. No matter how educated they are or how clean their record is, "Being Black in America today is basically the equivalent to having a felony conviction," Diva Pager, a Princeton professor, told O'Brien.

Pager conducted a study to discern how difficult it is for a Black man to get a call back from a prospective employer, whether or not he had a criminal conviction. She was not surprised to find that a Black man with a conviction has nearly a zero percent chance of getting a call back. However she also found that a Black applicant with a clean record did not fare much better. 

"A black applicant with no history of a criminal background fared no better than a white applicant who's just out of prison," said Pager.

Pager's research also revealed that many potential employers harbor stereotypical ideas of Black men, such as that they're lazy, have a poor work ethic, present themselves badly, especially with respect to their attire, and are threatening or criminal.

The negative stereotypes factor into absenteeism from fatherhood. When Black men can't find jobs, they can't provide for their families.

"It is very difficult in this society for a man to marry, to sustain a family, to sustain a relationship with a woman, children, et cetera, if he can't fulfill the provider roles," said Ronald B. Mincy, professor of social policy and social-work practice at Columbia University.

Nearly 60 percent of all Black children are reared without a father in their home, reported O'Brien.

"We have figured out a myriad of ways to enable young women to raise children in the absence of fathers and I think that's a huge problem," Mincy told O'Brien. "History has a lot to do with it. Slavery did do major damage to gender relationships in the African-American community and, in addition to that, shock. We have had renewed shocks over time."

For Black men who are educated, find jobs and develop successful, lucrative careers, they often find themselves alone, "Black in America" revealed.

"I still find it shocking sometimes where there are so few African-American men," Malcolm Gillian, vice president for Momentum Worldwide, told O'Brien.

Black men hold about 3 percent of all management positions in America, O'Brien reported.

But Gillian takes it all in stride and instead of focusing on whether or not he sticks out, he focuses on his ability to "bring a different perspective to everything," he said.

"Black in America" ended with a poignant juxtaposition: the life of Michael Eric Dyson, author of 16 books and a professor at Georgetown University, with that of his brother, Everett Dyson, who is serving a life term for murder.

"Choices. We make them every single day. I've not always made the best of choices. And therefore, I must suffer the results thereof. I've learned that," Everett told O'Brien.

But while Everett's choices may have sent him to prison, his brother contends that he was pushed to make the right choices because of racism. Michael has lighter skin than his brother Everett and Michael contends that because of his lighter skin, their family, teachers and their community pushed him to educate himself and succeed. Everett was allowed to flounder because his darker skin made him expendable.

"I saw how the differential treatment was accorded me, little curly-top, yellow Negro child. I'm not dissing any yellow Negro children. That's who I am. I'm saying that being a dark-skinned Black man has a kind of incriminating effect to many people," Michael told O'Brien.

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