Roland Martin served as host and moderator at last night's Black in America 2 Screening

I showed up early to last night’s “Black in America 2″ screening at the Navy Memorial Heritage Center hosted by CNN. I heard rumors of 100+ people being turned away at the screening in New York and I refused to be one of those sour faced people. (Apparently, they learned from the mishap in New York and supplied an ‘over flow’ area for DCers who couldn’t make it inside of the theater. Still, people were pissed.)

Roland Martin, a lively host introduced the short version of the documentary, explaining that this isn’t the finished project. Instead, we watched a 45 minute abbreviated version of the two hour documentaries premiering Wednesday, July 22 with Black in America 2: Today’s Pioneers and Thursday, July 23 with Black in America 2: Tomorrow’s Leaders.

I wasn’t a fan of Black in America 1. Perhaps I couldn’t relate to these faces that were supposed to be ‘the face of Black America’. It would be a understatement to say I was a little disasppointed.

So, when Soledad O’Brien got the chance to go back into the heart of America to find other black faces to represent ‘Black America’, I was excited.

Highlighting pioneers in the fields of education, entertainment and family as well as future leaders in those same fields, CNN’s BIA2 had me interested. These were the people that I recognized and these were the people I could connect to.

From the Barnes couple whose marriage was suffering (they were actually together in the theater that night so I’m glad to see them working things out) to Nisa Muhammad, the founder of Wedded Bliss Foundation, an organization aimed to mend broken marriages or help budding relationships get off to a good start; from Malaak Compton-Rock letting us go behind the scenes in her Journey for Change program where she picks kids from the inner city to go on a service trip to Africa, to Tyler Perry taking us behind the scenes at his historic soundstage in Atlanta, making him the first African-American to own a movie studio; BIA2 attempted to cover the spectrum.

I can’t say if the documentaries covered them well because the screening simply gave a taste of what was to come but I will say the footage incited laughter and even made a tear well up in my eye.

But don’t expect BIA2 to be the last in this series. There’s honestly no way you can have extensive coverage and not cover topics such as religion (especially in the Black community) and generational curses such as poverty, “early” pregnancies and self-esteem issues.

Executive producer Mark Nelson seems very enthusiastic about the project and I’m glad he was on hand at the screening (although he was one of the few white faces in the room. At one point he made the argument that the documentaries were aimed at White America, an America that wasn’t informed of Black issues yet I didn’t see many white faces in the audience…).

Following the screening, a panel discussion (that went widly off topic) included speakers such as Greater Washington Urban League President Maudine Cooper, Paul Shephard of AOL Black Voices, , John Rice of Management Leadership for Tomorrow, TheRoot.com’s Dayo Olopade and CNN Productions Exec Producer Mark Nelson. Although the panelists were asked their thoughts on topics such as the prison-industrial complex (why was this brought up?) of course the speakers kept within their scope of either family, media or policy and didn’t answer the question. I would have much rather liked to see a panel of individuals from the film and how they forsee it helping or shaping the identity of Black Americans.

The documentaries air on Wednesday, July 22 with Black in America 2: Today’s Pioneers and Thursday, July 23 with Black in America 2: Tomorrow’s Leaders. TUNE IN (then comment)