Soledad O’Brien’s Black in America Series: Your Thoughts

Soledad O’Brien

Soledad O’Brien, an anchor and special correspondent for CNN is currently presently a CNN’s Black in America series. Soledad examines the successes, struggles of African American and complex issues faced by black men, women and families and issues relating to Blacks 40 years after the death of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The documentary was in the works "before Barack Obama’s candidacy had any traction," O’Brien told reporters at TV critics’ press tour in Los Angeles last week. In fact, what turned out to be part one, broadcast in April on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King was the inspiration for further investigation, she said.

That event "led you to ask, ‘Well, where are we now? How far have we come since that day where the dream potentially could have died?’"O’Brien said. "This is a topic that deserves four hours of coverage, at least."

Soledad, 41-year-old, was born in St. James, New York to Irish Australian and Afro-Cuban parents. She is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

O’Brien is noted to have said she took inspiration from her parents, a black mother and a white Australian father who met in 1958 at Johns Hopkins University, who could not legally marry in Maryland because of the era’s miscegenation laws, and who were advised not to have children. O’Brien is the fifth of their six children. All of them, incidentally, graduated from Harvard University.

Have you seen any of the Black in America series? What do you think about it?