world with black enterprise" lynn witfield tells us why breast cancer prevention is personal. she's our headliner. plus our round table, black hollywood is creating its own projects. we discuss the rise of independent films. and in this week's slice of life, we visit the first sugar-free school in the nation. all that up next. welcome, everyone.

i'm ed gordon. as many of you know october is breast cancer awareness month. breast cancer is the most common cancer among women and black women are more likely to die from the disease. lynn whitfield has teamed up with novartis to get the word out about early connection. i sat down with miss whitfield to talk about her personal connection to the disease. always good to see you. >> thank you. thank you so much. >> welcome. we have talked over the years about different projects you're doing on the movie side or the television side. today you're talking about something that is far more important than any of those things that you've done and that is your connection with breast cancer awareness. talk to me a little bit about first of all why you decided to become involved? >> well, i'm a daughter of a breast cancer survivor and i am so amazingly grateful, though i

thought my mother was sometimes, you know, being overly cautious, i know that i wouldn't have her here with me now, that my granddaughter, her granddaughter wouldn't be able to have her here if she had not been conscientious about early detection going for her mammograms. so experiencing that in my life on the positive side, made it for me extremely important when novaris came to me and the american cancer society came to me and asked me to be a part of this because it is absolutely often times pain and sorrow and sadness that can be avoided. >> you talked about dealing with it through your mom but i also understand it runs in the fair with an aunt touched by it as well. >> i have an aunt it touched by it at a different time and she made a different choice. she decided on mastectomy. she could have fought it.

she also was conscientious, but yes, it is in the family. i guess i am, and my daughter and all the women in our family, would be, you know, at risk for breast cancer, which means we really have to be on top of it. >> are you consciously fearful of that since it runs in the family? >> i don't walk in fear. fear will do nothing. taking charge of the situation -- >> you're aware of it, then. >> acutely aware and conscientious about it. >> i know one of the things you want to do is ring this bell loudly for african-americans and other minorities because we have been ringing the bell, have not heard it the way we should in our community. >> no, we haven't. i was amazed when i saw the statistics. breast cancer is the second most prevalent cancer in all women in the united states and african-american women because we don't do early detection, we die more from it.

so, that made me very, very sad. so the survival rate with african-american women is 77%. with women of other races, it's 90%. and there's no need for it. >> lynn, we should also note that there is a myth, i think, that runs throughout communities that this is a solely female disease and men can, in fact -- >> i was amazed to see this week. >> contract it? >> absolutely. that there was this whole study done and some show i saw on it with all of these men who have breast cancer. >> but richard roundtree we should note, thankfully he has survived that. >> richard roundtree. we actors. you know joes feign. >> let me ask you this. one of the notions that is interesting in early detection and the like is something you and i were talking about off camera and that is the whole health care debate right now.

this is one of the reasons that we've seen the growth in cancer rates in our community because people don't go to the doctor early enough. >> well, it's so -- it's really difficult because so many of our people are not insured, african-american community, we're not insured. that makes it very difficult. and we have to leave the community and go into those big institutions and wait in line and, you know, become a number to have a mammogram and i understand that is difficult, i understand that. but we have to take charge of breast cancer. so it means that we can't dwell on the obstacle, we can't dwell on the difficulty. we have to take charge and do it because i tell you, every friday in any community acrosshihihihi country, where there's a beauty shop, there are people having their hair done and having their nails done. we really have to be more

involved in our inner health and i hope the country and the government catches up with that, but regardless, this campaign is about us taking charge. it's irresponsible, and i'm not being fussing and fussing at my sisters, but i'm just saying -- >> it's just the truth, though. >> we can take charge and that if we're going to look at, you know, being goddesses and, you know, loving ourselves, there is no way that, you know, could be any more important than making sure that you have your exams, that you do your self-breast exams, have your mammograms, make sure you know where to go, find out. you have to seek the information out. >> let me ask you, taking it to your day job, if you will. i'm often curious about people who have had a similar role, a role that, you know, in the first line of your bio or heaven forbid when you leave us, as we

all will, that will be that first line, you have that role, the josephine baker story. i suspect younger people may think that's who you are to a great degree, lynn. >> sure. >> is that a pleasure or a curse for you? >> well, definitely it was a plus in my life and a true blessing and a great honor to play such a fabulous woman. i think that it's not about whether or not it's a blessing or a curse. it's absolutely a blessing. the push forward to continue to do other things that are as important, it's the continuum of a career that sort of counts. it's always that push through to keep doing projects that are interesting, that are important, that touch people, and then there are actresses and actors who never have an opportunity to do a role that they're associated with for life. so i guess we'd have to call it a blessing. >> up next, why some black

actors are bypassing the hollywood machine and creating their own films. >> you'd think that because hollywood is a money making machine, that they would take that lead and run with it and we would see a plethora of urban family films. that didn't happen. well-informed people are considering chevy malibu. you a cop? no. you didn't hear from me, but this malibu is a best buy. i heard that from consumers digest. it offers better highway mileage than a comparable camry or accord. estimated 33 highway. i saw that on the epa site. so how come the malibu costs so little. it's a chevy. you have cop hair. the award-winning chevy malibu. compare it to anyone and may the best car win.

the chevy malibu and toyota camry received 5 star crash safety ratings. but only malibu has onstar. big deal. i'll just use my phone. let's say we crashed. whoops, you lost your phone and you're disoriented. i'm not disoriented. now you are. onstar automatic crash response can call to see if you're ok. onstar emergency. is everything ok howie? you don't answer, they can automatically send help to your exact location. i think i'll ride with you. the award-winning malibu. from chevy.

. welcome back.

few roles are created for black actors in mainstream hollywood more than ever. people are taking the independent route. joining me to talk about the growing number of black independent films are christian powell, a familiar face and veteran officer and stars in the film "jazz in the diamond district." lindsey, director of the newly released independent film and jeff friday the ceo of the film life and founder of the american black film festival which celebrated its 13th anniversary this year. jeff, let me start with you i can remember year one when you were trying to get this thing going. a, congratulations to you. >> thank you very much. >> we are seeing a growing number of films but also seeing an industry that's struggling to kind of keep up with itself and its history of being able to turn out movie after movie after movie. the economics of the day don't always allow that anymore. talk to me about where we truly are in this realm? >> we're at an interesting place. five years ago, there was a

plethora of black independent projects and what afforded that opportunity was that most films produced by studios were not really specific enough to the black experience. and because the urban dvd business was so strong, five six years ago, that became the outlet for these voices. prior to that, if you didn't have a theatrical release you didn't have any opportunity to make any money in mainstream hollywood. >> so let me ask you this, has tyler perry's success, his model, been one that has helped the black independent film or hurt it? >> i think tyler perry's model has helped tyler perry. what tends to happen is studios will jump on a particular bandwagon and then lose sight of the other types of films that also have potential in a commercial market. for example, ten years or so ago a film called "soul food" and it did $50 million or whatever it was, i thought studios would make family oriented films because it proved it was a

digestible concept, black people, diversity, and blah and you would think they would take that lead and run with it and we would see a plethora of urban family films. that didn't happen. >> hollywood is also a copy cat machine except when it comes to us. when we saw you in similar roles where -- i don't care what anybody says -- when you rolled up with that lollipop, i know cas lik cats like that. when you can capture that moment and know that -- assume that as we do often, that's a similar moment on film and for other actors, that's their springboard. how do you keep going with the idea that hollywood maybe isn't noticing, not just me, but the artistic value of many of us in the way they should? >> i had a manager who kept me trained on doing the work, you know. so i try not to get caught up in

this one role might be a springboard. doors did open after "dead presidents." deep rising, i went on to do a movie called "phantom," "deep rising." because i didn't have a plan when i came to hollywood, if i liked something i'd do it and i think as african-american actors, as women, black, white, latino, asian, i don't think you can sit around and wait for that. i don't think you can worry about it. it should happen. but it doesn't necessarily always happen in hollywood for african-american actors. >> let me ask you, what propelled you to say i'm going to make this film, and a, tell us quickly, thumbnail if you will, what the film is about but, b, what gave you the impetus to do it. a lot of people now, with everybody carrying a camera believes they're a filmmaker, what got you off the couch and made you do this? >> the film is about a girl that drops out of school and moves to

d.c. to be with her mother who's ill and she's a singer so she's getting entrenched in the underground scene in d.c. and gogo music. i really think that the story was what really inspired us. my sister came up with the story. we're both from d.c. we just wanted to really do a film about something that we knew and, you know, about a city that we grew up. >> jeff, how do we make sure these stories are scene? because often, there's some great movies that remain on the shelves, they get a cult following, but it's relatively small. how do we make sure that the community and the people start to understand that there's some work being done out here you need to see that speaks to you. >> well, our festival, as you well now, is really the outlet for our answer to that. we created -- we're going to our 14th year as an alternative to sun dance. i would go to sundance in toronto and i would see one or two black films. so you've got to go to the festivals and do the festival

circuit. i always advise filmmakers, most filmmakers are creative people, not business people, and you find a hybrid occasionally you'll find a person who's a hybrid between the two. i say when you raise money for your movie, raise money for your marketing. so you don't get stuck with a 90-minute feature film and $400,000 of your money, your mamma's money or cousin's money and no outlet to distribute the work. >> has that been the hardest thing? i did an interview with spike lee and spike said, it's really at the end of the day about the marketing because you can make a fantastic film and no one will know about it. how difficult has it been for you to get the word out? >> it hasn't been that difficult, but we've always kept in our mind that we would, you know, every step of the way, decide whether or not we wanted to move to the next level and distribute ourselves or do the marketing promotion ourselves. it's costly to some degree and you have to think about that and you have to get creative. the internet helps a lot these days and there are difference things you can do. it's still a challenge. >> as an actor, i think you

spoke to it earlier, letting the work speak for itself. but for one who has done major motion pictures, and one who does independent films, outside of the obvious, the dollar amount, what's the biggest difference for you? >> what i find is, when we did our jazz in the diamond districts or when i did women, there's more collaboration, not so many to say we want cliff powell as opposed to ben affleck. someone may say we want cliff powell we have our own money we're going it with cliff powell. don cheadle is a great example. hotel rwanda. they said we want don cheeldsle and that's who we're going to get. you don't have the studio bosses telling you. often times, it's not a knock on the studio, often times in the urban network, in our communities they don't know who's hot and who's not and who's respected and not. >> thanks so much. >> thank you. >> take a quick break. when we return the former principal that made children's

health her life mission. back in a moment. hand sanitizers are essential,

but the alcohol is drying. (announcer) new gold bond hand sanitizer kills germs without alcohol then moisturizes. kills germs, loves your hands. after confronting her own health problems with diabetes,

dr. valerie sanders butler banned sugar from her suburban atlanta school. more than ten years later, the gatekeeper is attempting to take the revolution across the country. it's 7:30 a.m., welcome to the morning vitamin, a warmup before breakfast. this is part of the daily routine at the browns mills elementary school in georgia. these kids understand the importance of exercise in the morning. >> it helps you because i get my body moving and my brain knows that it's time to get ready so work and go to school and learn new things. >> reporter: and the breakfast is balanced. fruits, healthy oates, yogurt and milk. real food to start the day off right. this is the dream of dr. yvonne sanders butler who overhauled the school ten years ago. butler had her own wake-up call when she came dangerously close

to having a stroke. >> with the support of my family and my friends, i was able to overcome what we know now as obesity, so i learned to live with it. with that, i brought it to my school. >> reporter: and the school became living proof that there was a direct correlation between healthy kids and test scores. >> we flipped the nutrition in the caf tyra. we removed all the excess sugar. we went to low fat as much as possible. low sodium. also, we put it in the curriculum because i believe then and i know now that if children are empowered and are educated, they will fight the fight. >> reporter: and dr. butler didn't just preach about change.

she rolled up her sleeves and got dirty in the kitchen. and believe it or not, it wasn't easy convincing the parents. especially when their kids' lunch was supplemented with healthier options at school. >> and what we know today is that our children are not healthy and that we have 60 million school age children between 6 and 19 years of age and one third of all of these children are at risk. >> reporter: and now, dr. butler is no longer principal, but she's taking her healthy kids smart kids plans to other schools. her assistant principal alicia smith is now leading the way and she also sees the place health and wellness holds in the school. >> we love her here. she has done a lot for this school. she's been here for over ten years and because of that, other schools are also adopting the healthy kids, smart kids model. >> reporter: dr. sanders butler published her book "healthy kids smart kids" in 2005 and was

recognized for her dedication to children by black enterprise magazine in february of 2007. and now dr. sanders butler is seeing the proof in each and every child. that's the goal. >> when a 4-year-old can tell you how much water they need, how much sodium they can have, how many carbohydrates they need, and good foods and bad foods, i think we're in a good place. >> we'll be back right after this.

right here in the united states every 9 1/2 minutes someone's father, mother, brother, sister, someone's friend, someone's coworker, someone's neighbor... every 9 1/2 minutes, someone is infected with hiv. be the solution. visit actagainstaids.org. learn. know. act. the pre-teen years are a challenging time, but they're also a good time to think about your child's health. which is why, if you're the parent of an 11 or 12 year old, you need to know about pre-teen vaccines. vaccines that can help protect your pre-teen from serious diseases like meningitis, whooping cough, and for girls, the virus that causes cervical cancer. so schedule a check-up for your child today

and ask specifically about pre-teen vaccines. because your pre-teen might think that they're all grown-up but they're counting on you to know better. for more information, call 800-cdc-info. that's 800-232-4636. or visit our website at www.cdc.gov/vaccines. brought to you by the u.s. department of health and human services and the centers for disease control and the centers for disease control and prevention.

that does its for this edition of "our world with black enterprise." until next time, i'm ed gordon and thanks for making our world your world.