"Have Black Americans had a fair shot at the American dream?" acclaimed journalist Bob Herbert asks. The question is answered in Against All Odds: The Fight for a Black Middle Class, a documentary that probes the harsh and often brutal discrimination that has made it extremely difficult for African-Americans to establish a middle-class standard of living. "Whites talk about working hard and playing by the rules. But Blacks have always had to play by a different, hateful set of hideously unfair rules. Working hard has never been enough for Black Americans to flourish," Herbert says in the film's opening. With a compelling narrative, dramatic historical footage and a series of deeply personal interviews, Herbert explores why this disturbing and often tragic state of affairs exists a century and a half after slavery and a half-century after the heyday of the civil rights movement.
