It's a long, long way from playing "Aaron" -- the TV son that Al Bundy on "Married ... With Children" always wished he'd had instead of his actual slacker son, Bud -- to playing savior.

Yet, savior is the real-life role actor Hill Harper is playing now.

Harper has appeared in several movies and is currently an acclaimed actor on the hit television show "CSI: NY."

What he should be most acclaimed for, though, are his efforts to save black children -- from bad schools, from bad parents, from bad decisions.

His first book was "Letters to a Young Brother," which grew out of advice he gave and a series of letters he wrote to actual kids he talked to at public high schools.

"Lots of young men would come up and ask questions under their breath because they didn't want anyone to know they were interested in improving their lives," he said.

His latest book is "Letters to a Young Sister," in which he enlists well-known women to offer advice to girls about love, school and pregnancy, among other things.

After watching a bit of the WRAL-TV documentary "Love Child" about teen pregnancy among black girls, all I can say is, "not a moment too soon."

Teen pregnancy among all ethnic groups has declined since 1990, with the largest decline -- 40 percent -- among black girls, Rebecca Wind of the Guttmacher Institute said. Yet, the rate for black teens still remains much higher than for any other group, she said.

The WRAL documentary, which airs at 7 p.m. Wednesday, focuses primarily on one family in Durham, a family in which teen pregnancy appears to be the rule, not the exception: The grandmother, the mother and now her two daughters were all mothers before reaching the age of 17.

Man, I wish members of that family could've talked to Harper when he just happened to be in the Triangle a couple of weeks ago promoting "Letters to a Young Sister."

They didn't talk to him, but I did. In the lobby of the Umstead Hotel and Spa in Cary, I met with Harper an hour before he appeared at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh.

Trish Coffey of Quail Ridge said "We sold every single book" of Harper's. "He had a wonderful, inspiring message for everybody."

Harper's messages do indeed resonate with everyone, but, he said, "I had to do a lot more research for this one. Young women are a lot more complex than young men. They may be doing fine academically, but their self-esteem may be low because of body-image issues" and other problems most boys don't deal with.

Harper, a Harvard Law School classmate and sometimes basketball opponent of Barack Obama, seemed way too modest to refer to himself as a savior, but I'm not.

With so many parents either unable or unwilling to raise their children properly, the kids need to get life-affirming information from somewhere. Harper's message is much more benign than most of what emanates from televison.

In an unusual example of candor for a successful actor, he acknowledged that "My industry has done more to decimate the self-esteem of young people than anything else. ... They feel that if they don't have a pair of Air Force Ones or the latest Jordans" [basketball shoes], they're worthless.

With conscientious actors such as Harper and the WRAL special Wednesday, perhaps his industry is doing something to offset some of that damage.