BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - Bill Cosby and two panels of education and business experts at a "50 Years Forward" event today called for education reform, more parental involvement in the lives of children and higher expectations for young black students.

Many young African Americans live their lives believing they can't succeed, and without role models to show them otherwise, said Alvin Darden, dean of the freshman class at Morehouse College.

"But in their confusion and in their doubt, I see hope," Darden said. The same students who arrive on campus disillusioned, perhaps even hostile, leave with degrees and a level of commitment to make their communities better, he said.

About two dozen panelists touched on topics including black celebrities' responsibility to their communities, the dearth of capital for black entrepreneurs and how young college graduates can control their own destinies in business.

But much of the discussion centered on the role of fathers in the lives of their children and society's responsibility to lend a hand when fathers aren't present.

Michelle Rhee, who did battle with teachers unions as she restructured Washington, D.C.'s schools, said parents should have the central role in shaping their children's lives. But in instances where parents can't, or won't play that role, society has a responsibility to help.

"Are we going to subjugate those children to a lesser education ... because of something over which they have absolutely no control?" she asked.

The condition of black society today is, in part, a legacy of a Jim Crow era in which a system of "share crop education" ruled, said civil rights leader Bob Moses.

Blacks were pigeonholed into certain jobs and then received the education sufficient for the job after their destinies has already been determined, Moses said.

"They were the serfs of the 20th Century," he said. Even today, he said, a black child who achieves only an eighth grade education is likely to end up in prison.

Yvette Richardson, a member of the Alabama Board of Education, was among those who said society has a vested interest in helping disadvantaged children succeed.

"It's going to take parents. It's going to take teachers. It's going to take the community," she said. "It's going to take everyone."

Several panelists, including actors who starred on television shows produced by Cosby, credited Cosby with providing fictional role models that helped elevate the expectations of young blacks.

Jasmine Guy, who starred in the TV series "A Different World," praised Cosby for creating television shows that portayed African Americans as being in the middle class, or working hard to get there.

"A Different World," set on the campus of a historically black college, was a spinoff of "The Cosby Show."

"The impact that The Cosby Show had on America was profound," Guy said.

Tempsett Bledsoe, who starred on "The Cosby Show," said that both Cosby's fictional characters, and his real-world actions, serve as inspiration. Cosby re-scheduled the production of his show so that Bledsoe could attend business school at NYU, she said.

"I learned some very valuable lessons about self-determination at a very early age," she said.

Benjamin Crump, the attorney who represented the family of slain teenager Trayvon Martin, also credited Cosby for providing positive role models. His mother worked two jobs to make ends meet, he said, and he found his middle class dreams on The Cosby Show.

"We had to look to the television," he said.

African Americans who do succeed, Crump said, need to extend a hand back to those who need help by being involved in their communities.

Today's panel discussions were part of a week of events in Birmingham commemorating the civil rights events of 1963. Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of the Ku Klux Klan bombing that killed for young girls at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

At the event today Miles College announced that on Sunday it will posthumously award bachelor of arts degrees to the victims, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Denise McNair.