<p>Bill Cosby said Thursday that there is an undercurrent of anger behind the problems facing black youth in America today, and that it is up the older generation to help turn things around.</p><p>"Our children are angry. The profanity is out in the street. It's on the buses and in the subway. Our children are trying to tell us something, and we are not listening," Cosby said in a speech at Frederick Douglass High School, named for the 19th-century black man who became an abolitionist leader and an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln.</p><p>The Atlanta visit was part of Cosby's tour of the country speaking to young black men and women about morals and responsibility.</p><p>During previous speeches, the 67-year-old comedian has criticized some black children for not knowing how to read or write, said some had squandered opportunities the civil rights movement gave them and unfairly blame whites for problems such as teen pregnancy and high dropout rates.</p><p>About 3,000 overflowed the high school gymnasium to hear his remarks, which largely were addressed to parents.</p><p>"We're loaded with wisdom. We've got to open our mouths. We've got to stop this thing," Cosby said.</p><p>"Our children want to cry. Our children want to be hugged, and we're not giving it to them," he said.</p><p>"You have to know your power. You can see it in your history. Just go to an old person and say `How did you do it?'" he said.</p><p>Cosby said one of the most pressing problems is young men fathering children and taking no responsibility.</p><p>"I'm saying to you men, please, for goodness sake, if you got children, even if you don't have a job, go visit them and explain how sorry you are," he said. "There are teachers in the United States who cry in the daytime because they see a child or children who haven't eaten properly, children who haven't used soap in so long.</p><p>"You can't tell me that this is all the white man's fault," he said.</p><p>"Everybody is not a victim," Cosby said as he began to tell the story abour Brown vs. Board of Education, and the legal team that overturned school desegregation.</p><p>"They beat back the white bigots with their brains," Cosby said. "When I look at 55 percent of our black men dropping out of school, how bad off are we going to be when we need some lawyers?"</p><p>Most of the audience members seemed supportive of Cosby's comments.</p><p>Claire Walker, who works at IBM and lives in Decatur, said she got off early to hear him speak.</p><p>"It's something that should have been said a long time ago," Walker said. "Our leaders aren't taking responsibility for the youth of black America."</p><p>Walker said she is from the Caribbean, where people don't understand the attitudes and actions of many black youths in the United States.</p><p>"I just don't understand parents accepting mediocrity," she said.</p><p>Henry Joyner III, who graduated from Douglass High in 1982 and is now a middle school teacher, said the turnout was good.</p><p>"This is the central issue in black America _ the education of our youth," Joyner said.</p><p>Douglass ninth grader Orientrius Cook said Cosby "is very powerful, and he spread his wisdom."</p><p>Cosby hit home when he talked about unwed parents, he said.</p><p>"I see a lot of girls who are pregnant. If they had a father figure, some of this wouldn't be," he said.</p>
