Don Lemon
CNN Newsroom Anchor

Travelers leaving a Mexican airport fill out questionnaires about their health.

“Planes are germy anyway,” CNN Executive Producer Jennifer Bernstein said to me over the phone today. I was talking to her about how paranoid I got while flying this week because of swine flu.

I travel by plane a few times a week, mostly for work. I’m in the air enough to earn platinum miles status on Delta and a few other airlines. (This reminds me, I need to get rid of all those US Airways miles from my stint in Philadelphia. But I digress.)

I flew to New York last Sunday morning to attend an awards ceremony at my alma mater, Brooklyn College. I had just anchored three hours of swine flu coverage, and all I could think about was being in a confined space with a few hundred other people. At least one of them was bound to have been in Mexico recently.

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It's been almost 30 years since his last fight but Smokin' Joe Frazier still has his jab.

Editor’s Note: He was a division 1 college football player with a pre-med degree… and now the highest distinction for any student: the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. Myron Rolle has a difficult decision, head to the NFL or head to Oxford? Watch Don Lemon’s full report tonight on AC360°, 11p ET

Don Lemon
CNN Anchor

As interesting as you might find Myron Rolle's personal story and accomplishments, the bottom line is will he accept the Rhodes Scholarship, or go for almost certain millionaire status in the NFL? It’s a tough choice. What would you do?

I didn’t ask him right away. I wanted to save it. I enjoyed the suspense. And frankly, I really liked playing out the scenarios in my head. If Rolle takes the money now from the NFL, he could quickly realize his dream of helping needy children. And who knows if the NFL will even be interested when he returns from Oxford University in England? A lot could change in two years. A Rhodes scholarship, however, doesn’t guarantee riches. But it is an accomplishment that only a select few can claim. Former President Bill Clinton, New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley, General Wesley Clark, to name a few; have certainly made their marks on society. It’s a real moral dilemma.

I met Rolle for the first time at dinner in the player’s cafeteria in the stadium. Rolle wore a designer suit by Sean John and a Burberry necktie; which made me self-conscious about wearing blue jeans and an open collar. The rest of his teammates wore sweats and as they walked passed us mumbled, “hey Mr. President” or “hey Mr. Rhodes.” All in good fun though, it’s obvious how proud they are of him.

In just under an hour I learned more about Myron Rolle than I know about some of my own relatives. Because of good genes, he basically eats whatever he wants. His dad and mom emigrated from the Bahamas before Rolle was born. His family is his main support system. His mother, Beverly and three of his brothers moved to Tallahassee from New Jersey to be near him. His dad and his other brother visit on weekends. At least one of his family members has been at every single football game, basketball game, baseball game or school play. He’s quite the performer. But as fate would have it, his mom told me, the only event her “baby ever went to alone” was his final Rhodes scholarship interview in Alabama. In an island accent Beverly Rolle said, “We waited on pins and needles. And it just happened to fall on the same day as his game in Maryland.” Myron Rolle told me he never had a second thought about what to do. He had to go to Birmingham. So, with legendary coach, Bobby Bowden’s and the NCAA’s blessings, the university chartered a private jet to get their star safety back in time to finish the game. Fans waited. His family waited. They heard nothing for hours. Finally, Rolle called his mom who he calls “Mummy.”

As we sat in an empty Florida State stadium, cameras rolling, Myron Rolle recited the call to me. “Put Mummy on the phone,” he said. “Mummy, I won.” She screams, "AAAAAAAHHHHHH."

“Mummy, relax, I have to tell you more,” Rolle says.” Then more screams. He says he had to hang up and text his dad and brothers because his mom couldn’t quite gain her composure. Being a momma’s boy I understood and it almost made me cry. I could see my mom doing the same thing. Mothers are so emotional. That’s why we love them.

So, the time had come for me to end my suspense. “You are going to take the scholarship and go to Oxford?” I ask. And he answers. But I’m not going to ruin the suspense for you. You’ll have to watch the story on AC360°.

Don Lemon
CNN Anchor

It's 9am here. The winds are howling.

I'm on the 10th floor of the East Jefferson Parish Emergency Command Center.

I'm in parish president Aaron Broussard's office napping on his couch. But my phone won't stop ringing... Mayor Ray Nagin's office is calling...

They need a number to our control room to get the mayor on the air. I give it to them. Time to wake up. 2 hours of sleep is all I'll get today. I've gotten a total of 4 since Saturday.

But there is a storm bearing down. And I have to shoot video and anchor a 4 hour show in a few hours. I'll sleep later.

Program Note: In CNN’s Black in America, Soledad O’Brien examines the successes, struggles and complex issues faced by black men, women and families, 40 years after the death of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We continue the discussion on the blog with insight and commentary related to the investigation.
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We reached out to CNN's Don Lemon to be part of our 'Black In America' blog coverage, asking for a telling experience, or a moment in his life that could shed light on what it means to be black in America.

What we received was a very personal blog entry. You can read it here. The reaction from the online community was incredible. The reaction from his own family proved equally strong. Don Lemon shares why he wrote the blog, what being 'Black in America' means to him, and what the blog meant to his family.

Here he talks about race in his family… how his great grandmother worked for a white man… and that man raped her:

Here Don explains why he decided to share his personal feelings on the AC 360 Black in America blog.

Program Note: In the next installment of CNN's Black in America series, Soledad O'Brien examines the successes, struggles and complex issues faced by black men, women and families, 40 years after the death of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Watch encore presentation Saturday & Sunday, 8 p.m. ET

We devote several days on the blog to smart insight and commentary related to the special.
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Brandon Henry, Don Lemon and the flight instructor at a flight camp in Georgia

Don Lemon
CNN Anchor

It's 8 in the morning and I'm at flight camp for high school students in Georgia. Most of the students are black teens who claim a real passion for flying. In just a few minutes I get to accompany 17-year old Brandon Henry on his maiden voyage behind the flight controls. He doesn't seem nervous at all, but I certainly am. I have not eaten breakfast. He offers me peanut M & M's. I don't think it's such a good idea to eat right now.

Brandon is a remarkable young man. I admire his passion and commitment to flying at such a young age. What an incredible opportunity. And it made me think about where I was at his age.

A training program like this for minority teens wasn't an option for me in the 1970's in my small Louisiana town. Instead of training to be a pilot or an astronaut or a journalist, at 17 I was trying to not make the same mistakes that some of my older male relatives had made; drugs, babies, jail. There's not much to do in a small town but get into trouble.

Also by 17, I had become quite adept at navigating between three different worlds; the light skin black world, the dark skin black world and the white world. Most southern blacks are very familiar with this. But more about that later.

Don't get me wrong, I came from a good family. Problem was that some of my peers did not. But, my grandmother watched me like a hawk. She was my and my two older sister's babysitter and co-parent for much of our youth. "Where are you going?" "Who's that boy's people?" "Did you write that paper?" Those were the standard questions. I didn't appreciate it then, but boy do I now. THANK YOU MAME (pronounced mah-me), god rest her soul!

My mother will tell you I idolized my grandmother. We watched daytime soap operas together. Even as late as high school my grandmother and I would have sleep overs at her house. We'd watch old black and white movies until the wee hours. We listened to late night radio shows. For hours we'd sit in rocking chairs on her front porch and watch the people and cars go by. Then we'd read bedtime stories together. Except, I'd read to her. She only had a fifth grade education. She died of Alzheimer's in 1998. I miss her every day of my life.

My grandmother looked White. To this day we still aren't sure of the exact mixture of her race. Her mother died in child birth. Her husband, my grandfather was brown and of African and French descent. They had three daughters. The middle one is my mother. I have two sisters. My father died when I was seven. My mom remarried. He died 23 years later. My mother is my best friend.

Mom, single at the time, chose an all Black, Catholic grade school for me where there was a substantial focus on "light skin" and "good hair." There I learned a respectable knowledge of reading, writing and arithmetic. More importantly I learned that not only did white people discriminate against black people; black people discriminated against each other. Skin that was lighter than a "brown paper bag" guaranteed entrance into Creole fraternities, sororities and historically black colleges and universities. Yes, the same HBCU's still exist today. In the Black community universities like Fisk, Spelman and Howard, among others, were openly referred to as "brown paper bag" universities. Darker blacks went to 'Skegee,' short for Tuskegee. It was, and still is, shameful.

In my home town, the big highway with its parallel railroad track was the dividing line. The blacks lived on the west side. The whites, on the east side. We all shared the grocery store, bank, post office and such. That's where I first heard a white person call me a N***er. When we moved to a new home in a "white" neighborhood some parents refused to allow their children to play with me. On Sunday the Ku Klux Klan would hand out paraphernalia on the same street as my high school. The majority white high school had only been integrated a few years before I attended. I'm not sure how it happened, but while the Klan did its thing out front; inside, my classmates were electing me Senior Class President. Only the second in the school's history. Progress. But to this day I believe the South offers Americans a most accelerated lesson on race relations.

The conundrum then was not fitting in with either the light skins or the dark skins or the whites. I had the light skin but i didn't have the "good" hair. Sometimes I could "pass" for a light skin, especially in the winter months when my skin would lighten up. But only if my sister applied a chemical blow out to my hair. It never lasted, and always turned my brown hair bright red.

Of course there were the usual infractions from whites like getting pulled over by the cops because I was driving a nice car, getting followed around by security guards in retail stores, being ignored by restaurant and bar staff. Sadly I had to learn to accept it, even expect it. But it somehow cut to the quick when black people did it. It hurt me deeply. Hey, whose side are you on anyway? – is what I wanted to ask out loud. I never did.

Turns out Brandon the flight student is from Louisiana too. Just listening to him talk about his town, his family, his friends, his neighborhood, I can tell not much has changed there. But much of the world around him has changed, and it's good that his family encourages him to explore it.

Brandon's first solo flight, like both of our upbringings, was a little bumpy, but not bad. He admits he needs to work on his takeoffs and landings. Personal responsibility is important, but he wasn't discouraged. In fact he is inspired by those challenges. And he inspired me too. At that moment it hit me; being black in America can be rocky at times, to say the least. And as much as life in some ways for many of us has stayed the same, it has also changed in just as many other ways. The point is to keep going. Like Brandon you too can change the world by changing "your" world. Thank you Brandon.