WORLD Channel

Why graduate? High school graduates make more money, are less likely to be unemployed, and live almost a decade longer than those who don’t finish school.

Graduation rates are increasing in almost every state — which states are leading this progress, and which states are lagging behind?

Climbing through the print media ranks, Roland Martin became the executive editor of the Chicago Defender in the '90s. Known as an authority on race, politics, religion, Martin has received awards for excellence in journalism and is an NAACP Image Award recipient. The host of news program Washington Watch also pens a nationally syndicated column and is a highly sought political and social analyst.

Award-winning chef Angelo Sosa is known for bold interpretations of Asian and American cuisine using complex flavors. After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, Sosa cooked in several acclaimed kitchens, even becoming an Executive Sous Chef. Most recently, he was the runner up on the seventh season of Top Chef, and is the owner of several restaurants in New York and Las Vegas.

Andrew "Lemon" Andersen is a poet raised in Brooklyn. He watched his stepfather, father and mother die from heroin abuse and AIDS complications, leaving him and his brother to grow up alone. With talent, encouragement from friends and mentors in the Hip Hop community, Andersen rose to critical acclaim. He has appeared in Def Poetry Jam, the PBS documentary Lemon and one-man show County of Kings.

Born into a working-class family outside of Detroit, Michael Eric Dyson became an ordained Baptist minister, and then obtained his masters and PHD degrees in religion from Princeton University. He is now a professor of sociology at Georgetown University. Called inspiring and influential by Essence and Ebony, Dyson is an author of 16 books focused on issues within the African American community.

Harvard University graduate Soledad O'Brien was born to an Irish-Australian father and an Afro-Cuban mother. O'Brien began as a TV writer and producer, and later became an anchor and co-host of news programs for MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News. In 2003, she was tapped to co-anchor CNN’s American Mornings and then Starting Point. O'Brien left CNN in 2013 to find Starfish Media Group, a production company.

For Beverly Bond, music is everything. It defined her childhood and helped her through the shadows of underground clubs to become one of the most sought after DJ’s. After leaving the music industry, which was fraught with superficiality for the male-dominated world of music production, Bond founded the non-profit Black Girls Rock! to promote and develop leadership roles in African American teens.

Born and raised in the Bronx, Malik Yoba is no stranger to life on the stage; his exposure to theater is the driving force behind his pursuit of acting. Yoba, winner of three NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series for New York Undercover, is the author of autobiography Yoba: Lessons From the Street and Other Places. He's also the founder of Malik Yoba National Theatre Company.

After being inspired by a PBS program, Michelle Rhee joined Teach for America and then founded The New Teacher Project. Appointed Chancellor of Washington D.C. Public Schools from 2007 to 2010, Rhee was met with criticism due to her aggressive style of public school reform. Currently, founder and CEO of StudentsFirst, an organization dedicated to urban school reform, has written the book, Radical.

Though Amar’e Stoudemire didn’t start playing basketball until his early teens, he has become one of the most dominating power forwards in pro basketball. With athleticism, skills and guidance, Stoudemire was drafted into the NBA after high school in order to elevate himself and his family to a better life. The All-Star player is also a writer of a series of books and founded an outreach program.

Susan Taylor, born and raised in Harlem, began her career as a freelance fashion and beauty expert for Essence, the year the magazine was founded in 1970. She rose through the ranks to become editor-in-chief and then publications director. Named "the most influential black woman in journalism" by American Libraries in 1994, Taylor is the founder and CEO of The National CARES Mentoring Movement.