The third hour reveals profound fissures within the country - and within black America - that deepened through the 1980s and '90s, just as African Americans were becoming more visible than ever. Gates visits his old friends Oprah Winfrey and Bob Johnson, who blazed astonishing trails during this era, reaching levels of success that Dr. King would never have imagined possible. Yet he also talks with Reverend Al Sharpton, who recalls the desperate fight mounted within poor black communities against a terrifying new scourge that was tearing lives and families apart: crack cocaine. Gates learns from Ronald Day, who grew up in the South Bronx, how hard it was to resist the profits of the crack business - a livelihood that eventually sent Day to prison, and fueled the spread of ever-harsher crime laws and policing tactics all over the country. Meeting with former Attorney General Eric Holder, Gates dissects the tragedy of America's War on Drugs, mapping out the dire consequences of an unprecedented prison-building boom set against the dismantling of the country's social safety net - a deadly combination that devastated many of the poorest and most vulnerable black communities. At the same time, Gates shows how many Americans, dazzled by the prominence of black superstars from Bill Cosby to Michael Jackson, and surrounded by compelling evidence of a well-established black middle class, were becoming convinced that racial inequality had been vanquished for good. The era's racial flashpoints called this view into serious doubt, however. The controversial Rodney King and O.J. Simpson verdicts, and the confirmation hearings of Justice Clarence Thomas - which Gates revisits with eyewitnesses like LAPD officer Stephany Powell and Thomas protégé Armstrong Williams - attested to the persistence of the color line in American society, despite the increasing diversity of the black community.