Dateline Nbc Class Photo

 ((Tues. (25), 10-11 p.m., NBC))

By TONY SCOTT

Taped by NBC News. Executive producer, Neal Shapiro; senior producer, Marc Rosenwasser; producer, John Block; editor, Bruce Burger. #Correspondent: Len Cannon. Asolid look at young adults who posed for their class photo 14 years ago in Brooklyn's P.S. 309 , this special edition of "Dateline NBC" doesn't pretty up the picture but shows how superior the human spirit can be. With 10 of the ex-classmates assembled for a reunion, there's no question of how wise and aware each of them is. Raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant in a rough neighborhood that averages one murder a week, these engaging black and Latino people talk openly to correspondent Len Cannon on how things have gone for them, how environment -- including, in too many cases, not having a father in the home -- meant so much, and how they were controlled by money or the lack of it, especially the boys.
 

The filmmakers searched for as many alums as possible from that fourth-grade class.

Some of the ex-students report on their activities and on what happened to their dreams, much as any American student might do.

But the catalysts are the neighborhood toughs, the fatherless homes, and the boyhood temptations. It's an eye-filling look at what happens to the dream deferred by insurmountable odds. One man, at first shy about revealing his identity, at last tells who he really is; another, who as a boy showed promise as a pianist, sports six bullet scars -- and has lost his musical touch. ]

There are sobering segs such as the reading of a letter to the gatherers from a classmate in prison. But the program also boasts some upbeat moments that glow. A young woman recalls with affection a boy she cared for when she was a girl. They'd lost touch; here, they reunite. The show adds a poignant twist to NBC News' weeklong look at race relations in the U.S., "Black, White and Angry." Despite that title, there's little anti-white rhetoric on display here. "Class Photo" is a picture of humanness expressed honestly in a hard world. Good report.