In my black circle, your name comes up a lot. But those names don’t mean anything to this generation.” “David Wolper cast all of America’s TV dads as villains. Overall, I’m super impressed with how the production updates the story-better special effects and better makeup, but also we know more about the history now. I have a four-and-a-half-year-old, and I immediately started thinking, “How would I prepare her for this?” We’ve already started the slavery conversation, but not in that direct of a way. WKB: Wait a minute, I’m supposed to ask the questions! It was surreal. Levar Burton: I understand you’ve seen a preview? We enlisted Bell to chat with Burton about the epic retelling, which airs for four nights starting on Memorial Day. Now, Burton is an executive producer of a star-studded remake from A&E and the History Channel that updates Haley’s story for a 2016 audience. But an entire generation will forever associate him with the slave who was determined never to forget his roots. Burton, now 59, went on to play countless roles (including Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation) and host the PBS children’s show Reading Rainbow.
“If you deconstruct the DNA of people my age and generation, Roots is in there,” Bell tells actor LeVar Burton, whose portrayal of Kinte launched his career. Who could forget that iconic scene in which Kunta Kinte, a Mandinka holy man’s grandson kidnapped from West Africa and sold into slavery, endures a brutal whipping for refusing to utter his slave name?
Kamau Bell, whose latest project, a CNN docuseries called United Shades of America, launched in April, still remembers watching Roots when he was little.
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