She's a busy mother of four, but that didn't keep journalist Soledad O'Brien from traveling across the country and producing six documentaries for her latest project, CNN Presents: Black in America. Holly and Rodney talk with Soledad about the project and the first documentary, which focuses on the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Plus, Soledad talks about how she uses her work to teach her children about black history.
While producing Eyewitness to Murder: The King Assassination, Soledad says she was able to interview some of the most important living people from the civil rights era. "What an incredible payoff to be able to sit down and talk to some of these civil rights legends—that was, to me, so amazing," she says. "I was grateful that we got to put them on tape because they are getting up there in age, and I love that we got their story and we have all their interviews and we are going to give them to the Civil Rights Museum."
Soledad says her two oldest children, ages 6 and 3, were able to travel with her while filming some of the documentary, taking part in the enriching experience. "I would bring them and they got to sit in the museums, and they understood a little bit about Rosa Parks and who she was and Martin Luther King," she says.
Soledad says she is still in the midst of producing several more documentaries for the Black in America series, focusing on black women, men and families in America. While she says the series as a whole is fascinating, the opportunity to conduct interviews with civil rights legends was the ultimate highlight. "I was really grateful for that opportunity as a journalist—it doesn't come around a lot," she says.
Printed from Oprah.com on Wednesday, June 19, 2013
