Then Henry Franklin Beard III walked in. A man of girth and gravity, he carried under one arm his 3-year-old son, Hank, to whom he clearly intended to bequeath his no-nonsense attitude toward life.
"He should always be able to talk to me about any issues - drugs, sex, education, fighting," Beard said to the camera as his son, sitting on his lap, toyed with his dad's graying goatee.
Beard, a 49-year-old computer engineer, said he would teach his son respect for others, for himself and for women. He had learned the value of respect from his own mother, Beard said, even though, as he acknowledged, he saw her "shoot at my dad a couple of times when I was a kid."
"We have too many issues with crime, with poverty," Beard went on. "It's easy to choose the wrong avenue."
Beard's answer appeared to encapsulate Morton's driving theme in the documentary, a project that came together in just over a week, after Shields had sought Morton's help in promoting the book.
Morton, an Upper Marlboro resident and music producer who last year directed the documentary What Black Men Think, cited a 69.7 percent out-of-wedlock birthrate among African-Americans as well as a divorce rate of more than 50 percent as primary causes of a dearth of "father-to-son interaction" in the black community.
Yesterday, Morton intended to use the short preliminary interviews as a casting session for longer narratives from about 20 of the men. Once chosen, their stories will frame the documentary, which will be cut to 42 minutes for - it is hoped - a television network. Morton said he might get everything he needs from the Baltimore sessions; if he does not, he will film more conversations in Washington, Philadelphia and perhaps New York.
One of Morton's producers, Anthony Truitt, suggested that many of his fellow blacks appeared to have become inured to the crime around them and the destruction of their communities. "If you drive through certain parts of Baltimore or Detroit, they look like war zones," he said. "Where's the outrage?"
In response, Charles Randolph, who works for a Falls Church, Va., company that provides translators in Iraq, said black communities have "lost morality."
"That really hurts us, from the elementary schools on up," he said. "You can't blame it all on rap."
