TINA MCDUFFIE: In America, what are the challenges facing Black men?

JAMISON: It was a incident that I'll remember for the rest of my life.

It was a white cop, he has his gun drawn.

FRANKLIN: All of us have been stopped or pulled over at some point by an officer.

POLICE OFFICER (shouting): Drop the taser!

MCDUFFIE: A teacher introduces young Black men to older Black men who faced the same challenges.

♪ ♪ "Road Scholars" on Local, U.S.A. ♪ ♪ SLIM THUG: ♪ Where the money at ♪ ♪ That's the first question ♪ ♪ You better pack a strap ♪ ♪ That's the first lesson hard times got... ♪ >> THELMA STRAIGHT: It was around 2009 when I started noticing that pop culture was glorifying the lifestyle of gangbangers.

♪ ♪ It seemed like it was everywhere.

♪ ♪ STRAIGHT: The messages that young men were getting-- you know, you're not important unless you play a sport, or you're a rapper, or you carry a gun.

(gunshot fires) ♪ To get a education you need a 40 cal 'cuz ♪ (gunshot echoes) My name is Thelma Straight, and I'm a teacher, author, and mother of three.

My own son had just turned 13, and I knew that the statistics were already stacked heavily against Black teenage boys.

One in three African American males was expected to end up in prison in his lifetime.

The leading cause of death among young Black men?

Homicide.

And the city I lived in at the time, Jacksonville, had the highest murder rate in Florida ten years in a row.

My own brother was shot and killed when he was just 16.

I wanted to help the next generation of Black men walk a less treacherous path.

I got an oral history grant and set out to find a diverse group of kids.

Some lived in high-crime neighborhoods.

Several had a parent in prison.

All of them were at risk for peer pressure.

Sometimes I pair you with somebody who I think might be able to teach you a particular lesson that I think you need to witness.

Then, with parental consent, we hit the road, armed only with a tape recorder and the hope that their lives might change.

(siren blaring) We're way behind schedule.

A lot of the boys didn't have a father figure.

You know, they had nobody to talk to about issues that they were facing.

I chose Black men from all walks of life, all over the country.

Some of the interviews were part of a StoryCorps initiative.

The boys interviewed a Tuskegee airman who'd been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the first Black sheriff elected in Florida since Reconstruction, and a former Air Force hero turned civil rights pioneer.

ALTON YATES: There wasn't very much that could frighten me, until I crossed over into Mississippi.

STRAIGHT: They talked with recovering addicts... (choir singing, clapping) ...and former felons.

ROBERT: How many times in your life have you ever been arrested?

Oh wow, man.

I probably can't count the times.

I robbed people; I shot pe-- I've gunned people down.

Boom, boom, boom.

I mean, dismembering-- people losing limbs and stuff like that.

That was some crazy stuff to hear back then, finally talking to someone who had done stuff like that.

♪ We goin' flashin' ♪ ♪ Everywhere we go ♪ ♪ Ice cold (muted) but the chain still rocky road... ♪ STRAIGHT: Raymond was a student of mine.

He had a lot of anger management issues.

RAYMOND: ♪ Lightning, 'cuz she's exciting... ♪ I didn't tolerate a lot of crap from anyone here.

STRAIGHT: Raymond had been arrested and put in an intervention program for first offenders.

Let's get rid of all the fake people in our lives.

Let's get rid of all the bull (bleep).

STRAIGHT: He would blow up in class.

I know he cussed at me and called me the B-word.

I was definitely angry.

For a long time.

And you ugly, (bleep).

STRAIGHT: That's why I wanted him to interview Rodney.

And I had became that monster, that beast.

It sent me into prison for decades.

It was really, it was a eye opener for me.

STRAIGHT: Raymond is now 30 years old.

Talking to him just reaffirmed I, I can't, I can't go to jail.

I'm not built for jail.

STRAIGHT: The kids who took part in the project are young men now.

And they're wrestling with many of the same issues those older men once faced.

I wanted to know whether the interviews had made any difference in their lives.

Five of them agreed to return to talk about the experience.

Jamison was raised by a single mom.

JAMISON: Growing up, I had a lot of friends die early, just out of my neighborhood.

And the crazy thing about it is I kind of, like, lived in the, in the suburbs.

The interview that most stuck out to me was the Alton Yates interview.

I remember he said... YATES: Some of our best minds are sitting in prison today.

JAMISON: It affected, like, man, damn, you know, I better stand up as a, as a Black man and use my mind.

I was doing an interview with a recovering drug addict.

ROBERT (on recording): Uh, which drugs have you done?

W.D.

WATKINS: Uh, which ones haven't I done?

You'll get a shorter answer.

(chuckles) Everything.

ROBERT: He reminded me of my grandfather.

You know, it's glorified within our community.

STRAIGHT: Robert was at a vulnerable age.

And at the time, studies showed that peer pressure discouraged Black kids from doing well in school.

ROBERT: You have people who look at you as if you're educated and you're not as... - As Black.

- Yeah.

Not as Black to them.

The idea of that you were putting effort in to do well in school was considered a, uh, an offense almost.

STRAIGHT: That's my son, Franklin.

Franklin used to say he didn't identify as Black.

FRANKLIN: It was always weird to me to have people who look like me tell me I'm not like them.

STRAIGHT: But many of the kids felt like they didn't fit into a white world, either.

Philip lost his home during Hurricane Katrina and ended up at a predominantly white school.

PHILIP: That's a different type of bullying.

Tripping me while I'm walking through, throwing stuff at me, yeah, it was bad.

(crowd cheering) STRAIGHT: Philip was nearly seven feet tall and Black.

And he was being pushed towards an obvious career choice.

(crowd cheering) PHILIP: Everywhere I go, "You play basketball?"

So, yeah, it was definitely pressure.

STRAIGHT: And there was something else I was curious about.

14 years ago, the kids couldn't relate to the men's stories about racial violence.

Two of the men described being attacked by a mob of white supremacists.

NAT GLOVER: I ran over to the police officer, and I can remember what he told me-- "You better get out of here before they kill you."

(men chanting "White lives matter!")

STRAIGHT: Now they're coming of age in an America that's turning back the clock.

I was not political whatsoever.

I-- honestly, back then, I could care less.

It wasn't in the forefront of my mind.

But now, it's always there.

It doesn't leave.

I can't not care anymore, because it could happen to me.

(gunshot fires) - I'm claustrophobic.

STRAIGHT: The murder of George Floyd was a shock.

But it wasn't a surprise to the Black community.

(protestors chanting "George Floyd!"

"Say his name!")

STRAIGHT: Still, I hadn't imagined that every single one of these young men had already had their own run-in with the police.

It was a incident that I'll remember for the rest of my life.

It was a white cop; he has his gun drawn.

We weren't told what we did or anything.

We were just in trouble for driving while Black.

(humorless chuckle) It was the only incident where I ever got put in handcuffs.

So I'm kind of like, "I know where this is going."

They think this is stolen vehicle.

That particular police officer was just in that hatred mindset.

It was almost like he had this evil presence on him where he just wanted to release it.

It's not just like a regular person has a gun drawn on you.

But this person that has a license to kill you and go home and sleep like nothing happened.

You feel powerless.

Kind of like, you don't matter.

Yeah, kind of like you don't matter.

And you think, like, "Am I gonna make it home today?"

STRAIGHT: So I thought, who better to advise them than the two men they'd interviewed 14 years ago, who knew the criminal justice system from the inside?

At one time, Rodney Jones ruled the streets of his hometown.

RODNEY JONES: If it was selling crack, it was selling coke, it was selling weed, I was putting a pistol on somebody, I did that.

STRAIGHT: Nat Glover ruled the streets of his city, too, but on the opposite side of the law.

GLOVER: I can guarantee you this: We're comin'.

JONES: I grew up in the bowels of poverty, living' in a house that got holes in the floor.

I sold drugs to change the dynamics of where I was.

STRAIGHT: It's been 22 years since Rodney turned his life around.

He got a degree in psychology, became president of his NAACP chapter, ran for city council, and now he's building affordable housing in his community.

Nat Glover ran for sheriff in a state with a long history of racist violence.

GLOVER: People said Nat Glover will never get elected in Jacksonville, Florida.

(crowd cheers) My approval ratings, they got as high as 91%.

Sheriff Glover, I don't ever want to be on the ballot against you.

(laughter) I reduced crime in the city just over 17%.

That was a huge number.

STRAIGHT: He did it by building trust in the community.

We really need some help on this crime around here.

- Okay.

- So, if you hear... GLOVER: I used to walk the neighborhoods.

I wanted to make certain that the people knew that I was concerned about their neighborhood.

POLICE OFFICER: Hands up!

Stop the car!

STRAIGHT: But today that trust in law enforcement is broken.

(gunshots firing rapidly) FRANKLIN: All of us have been stopped or pulled over at some point, uh, by an officer.

How do you approach situations that you have an officer abusing their position of power?

We're gonna have to weed out the bad ones.

OFFICER: Stop!

MAN: Okay.

Damn.

GLOVER: We too often see the signs, and we ignore them.

Think about this-- law enforcement officers are the only people in our profession that can take a life through a unilateral decision that they make in an instant.

(police chatter on radio) POLICE OFFICER: Drop taser!

(gunshot fires) Prosecutors don't have that authority.

Judges don't have that authority.

No one else but police officers.

I think it's going to boil down to more, uh, professional leadership, better training, and making certain we get the right person to become a police officer.

What would the process be to find the right people to become officers?

GLOVER: You got to get people who are going to be sensitive to diversity.

What advice would you give any young Black man that comes into contact with the police to make sure he gets out of that alive?

Sometimes we can de-escalate the situation just in the manner of our speech, our movements.

POLICE OFFICER: Keep your (bleep) hands on the wheel.

GEORGE FLOYD: Yes, sir.

Watch the tone of your voice, not just what you say.

OFFICER CHRISTOPHER SCHURR: Do you have a driver's license?

PATRICK LYOYA: Yes, it's in... SCHURR: Where's it at?

LYOYA: It's in the car.

RAYMOND: You might see a video of a Black man complying and still get killed.

Do you comply till you die?

OFFICER SCHURR: No, no, no, stop.

Stop.

Put your hands up.

(men scuffling) JONES: It's hard.

I share that.

But at the same time, I want you to make it home.

If you make it home, we can deal with what comes after.

Should Black people truly trust white people?

Mmm.

JONES: I got some friends who are great people.

But I say, walk carefully.

Many have a separate motivation versus just genuinely trying to help.

BARACK OBAMA: Change has come to America.

(crowd cheering) RAYMOND: That day when Obama won, I had a teacher, like, he straight out just said, like, seeing Obama won was like watching the Twin Towers fall.

What kind of comparison is that?

A lot of the white kids in there were going crazy, drawing monkeys on the, you know, in their binders and on the whiteboards and stuff.

It's just a eye-opener that like, you know, no matter how well you know somebody, it just takes one moment to see stuff come out of them that you would've never expected.

STRAIGHT: Since then, these young men have watched the country grow more openly intolerant, and they're worried about how much worse it'll get.

That's why I decided to bring back a man who'd been on the front lines during a very dangerous era for Black people.

JAMISON: Nice to meet you again, Mr. Yates, after so many years.

- Same here.

STRAIGHT: Alton Yates had his eyes opened in the 1950s at Holloman Air Force Base.

But it wasn't because of the racism there, it was because of the lack of it.

YATES: Out there in the real world, you still had all of those horrors.

But for the four and a half years I was assigned to Holloman, there had been absolutely no discrimination.

STRAIGHT: Yates took part in a special project testing the effect of space travel on the human body.

YATES: Stopping at one and two-tenths seconds was like you ran and... (hands clap) ...straight into a stone wall, head on, at hundreds of miles an hour.

You're aware of all kinds of pain everywhere, and sometimes those effects would last up to a month.

STRAIGHT: But the experience that shaped his future happened on his way back home, after he left the service.

YATES: I had been cited by the Department of Defense for having risked my life more than 65 times for science.

There wasn't very much that could frighten me until I crossed over into Mississippi.

I became frightened.

I walked into the restaurant, and this big white guy grabbed me on the shoulder, used the N-word, and told me that they didn't serve my kind in there.

There was a huge billboard on the side of the road that said "Knights of the Ku Klux Klan" across the top.

And it had picture of a Black person hanging from a tree.

And it used the N-word, and it said, "Don't let the sun set on you in this county."

Oh, wow.

I promised myself that I was going to do something to try to change those conditions.

It's amazing.

STRAIGHT: In the summer of 1960, Yates helped stage a sit-in at a lunch counter and temporarily shut it down.

But when they returned the following week, the Ku Klux Klan was waiting.

There was a truck parked near where that gray car is down there.

And there were guys standing on the back, passing out axe handles to a large group of men.

Some had the Confederate battle flag.

About eight of us doubled back, and we went into the Woolworth store.

Just as we got seated, then a group of folk rushed in and started beating us with axe handles.

I was hit on the back of the head.

(men shouting) Somehow, we were able to get out through a side door.

My ears were ringing and a serious headache.

That whole area around the park, all of that area was just full of people.

And you could hear the screaming, and it was a nightmare.

I was frightened beyond anything anybody could imagine.

I think it was Life magazine that had the picture of the innocent bystander who was on his way to work, but he was beaten bloody.

JAMISON: And did the mayor, did he react to this?

Yeah, he did.

His reaction was, "That didn't happen."

Wow.

And not a single member of either group came in contact with an individual of the opposite group.

We learned a lesson, all right, and that lesson was that you don't stop simply because you are threatened with, with violence.

STRAIGHT: About seven months later, lunch counters were finally integrated.

What advice would you give us on how to navigate racism?

- Don't run away.

- Mmm, yeah.

Yeah, stay and fight the good fight.

It's worth it.

STRAIGHT: So, I wondered, had any of these conversations made a difference?

RAYMOND: I did not like coming to school.

STRAIGHT: It had been a long time since Raymond and I had been at the school where he was my student.

The year 2013 ring a bell?

Oh, here we go.

(Straight laughing) STRAIGHT Being there made Raymond realize he wasn't where he thought he'd be by now.

I have never heard no beats like this.

STRAIGHT: Back then, Raymond hoped to break into the music industry.

But a series of personal setbacks changed that.

RAYMOND: I haven't figured out what I want to permanently do in life yet.

One of the reasons why I chose not to go to college was because how much I hated school.

STRAIGHT: Raymond said the interviews inspired him to get out of his rut.

So he found a new job.

It did me, it did me a lot of good to just realize that I still got time to keep figuring stuff out, 'cause you know two of the guys, they're, they're, like, in their 70s, 80s, still doing stuff.

STRAIGHT: Jamison says listening to civil rights crusader Alton Yates 14 years ago was what inspired him to become an activist.

Soon after those first interviews, Jamison spent two years living on the street, ministering to the homeless.

Since then, Jamison has gotten involved in political action and has worked on several successful campaigns.

One of the things that she's trying to do is, you know, build up infrastructure.

STRAIGHT: And then there's Robert, who interviewed W.D.

Watkins, a former addict.

Even when I was in the, um, recovery, I went and got me $300, $400, $500 worth of crack.

(laughs) I actually have a few family members who abused some kind of substance.

STRAIGHT: I was really curious to know what direction Robert went, because addiction can sometimes run in families.

ROBERT: I would never use it as a way to cope, because I see what it does to people.

It really strips away who they are.

STRAIGHT: Robert didn't give in to peer pressure to quit school, either.

He's currently pre-med and wants to improve health care for people of color.

Philip didn't pursue a basketball career.

He joined the Air Force and was sent to Saudi Arabia.

PHILIP: We were living in tents and bunk beds, and bombings going on, and we're hearing alarms in the middle of the night.

STRAIGHT: Philip just recently returned home.

That still affects me.

I still wake up, like, in the middle of the night sometimes.

A lot of those experiences, they were out of your control.

STRAIGHT: Dr. Richmond Wynn is another one of the men interviewed 14 years ago.

He's a former mental health counselor.

So, when you come out of that, I think readjusting and coming back to a place where you are in control of your life is important, too.

STRAIGHT: And then there's my son, Franklin.

One day when he was in the 11th grade, he told me he couldn't feel the left side of his body.

He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

It's a disease where your immune cells kind of tear apart the insulation on your nerve, on your nerves.

STRAIGHT: I watched him come to grips with it.

And then he just picked himself up.

FRANKLIN: It's more of something that I deal with, not a part of, like, who I am.

STRAIGHT: Franklin got into Brown University on a full ride.

And he says he no longer sees himself as a "lone wolf."

FRANKLIN: I make it a, like, definite goal of mine to socialize, to connect with people and have a tribe.

STRAIGHT: Some of the boys who took part in the project 14 years ago didn't return for various reasons.

But there are two of them whose stories, I feel, need to be told.

(person laughing) You ready?

My name's Jeremiah, and people tend to think certain people like me don't exist.

STRAIGHT: When I started the project in 2009, there wasn't much support for Black LGBTQ teens.

Jeremiah had experienced a lot of bullying.

JEREMIAH: I'm not transgender.

You know, there's clothes that you can buy, and if you like them, put them on.

STRAIGHT: That was Jeremiah 14 years ago.

Today, he's a professional makeup artist.

You got men out there that hate anything that ain't men.

And they will do physical harm to you.

STRAIGHT: One of the men Jeremiah interviewed was a pastor whose brother was gay.

I have a brother that was murdered just because of his gay lifestyle.

And my fear for you is that you have to be extra careful.

STRAIGHT: That warning turned out to be a prophetic one.

The guy came from behind me with a belt he wrapped around my neck, and he drug me from one end of the parking lot to the other.

And I began to lose consciousness.

I couldn't see, like, I couldn't even open my eyes.

I couldn't scream.

STRAIGHT: Many of Jeremiah's friends have also been attacked.

And he says new laws are making things even worse.

In the past year, hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced across the country.

Clarence was another LGBTQ participant in the project.

During an interview he and I did for StoryCorps, he talked about a crushing exchange he'd had with his father.

CLARENCE: He saw me, and he was very disappointed because of the way I was dressed, and he was like, "What do you got on?"

STRAIGHT: Mmm.

CLARENCE: And then he was like, "Don't make me hit you."

STRAIGHT: Wow.

CLARENCE: Yeah.

DR. WYNN: When you have people not validating you for, for who you are and what you say your truth is, that is just, that's devastating.

STRAIGHT: When I went to track Clarence down again for this project, I was sad to hear that he'd been diagnosed H.I.V-positive.

According to his friends, Clarence didn't tell anyone how sick he was until it was too late.

He was only 24 years old when he died.

There's still lots and lots of shame around that, and so many people don't get tested.

And if they do know their status and they, and they are positive, they may not be engaged in routine care.

STRAIGHT: Young as you are, I still want to ask the question, um, how would you like for people to remember you?

CLARENCE: I'm going to be remembered as a smart person, as somebody who really didn't start trouble.

I'm going to be remembered as a good friend.

STRAIGHT: Clarence was a good friend, always full of joy and hope.

Perhaps his story can help others.

His was a light put out too soon.

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