The popular DNA culture series “Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr.” will premiere an all-new ten-episode season beginning Tuesdays, beginning January 8, 2019 at 8:00 p.m. ET (check local listings) on PBS.
This season features an array of celebrated guests who are cultural trailblazers with fascinating family stories, including Academy Award winner Marisa Tomei; Emmy and Golden Globe Award winners Felicity Huffman, Laura Linney and S. Epatha Merkerson; and actors Michael K. Williams, Andy Samberg, Chloe Sevigny and Kal Penn. Season Five also includes superstar author George R.R. Martin; acclaimed journalists Christiane Amanpour, Ann Curry, Joe Madison and Lisa Ling; bestselling author and Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg; TV hosts Seth Meyers and Michael Strahan; artists Marina Abramovic and Kehinde Wiley; politicians Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard and Paul Ryan; Academy Award-winning filmmakers Alejandro Innaritu and Michael Moore; and comedians Tig Notaro and Sarah Silverman.
At the center of it all, guiding every discovery, is host and executive producer Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University and director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. “I find it inspiring that our fellow Americans are so determined to explore their own ancestral heritage,” said Gates, “precisely at a time when immigration has become such a deeply controversial and sensitive matter. Our series demonstrates each week, in vivid detail and with moving storytelling, that a continuing source of strength for our country is the fact that we are a nation of immigrants. That we can serve as both guide and inspiration to the splendidly exciting pleasure of finding one’s roots is an immense honor. I believe that the more each of us understands about where we came from, about what our ancestors experienced, and how those experiences have shaped us, whether we knew about them or not, the more richly we can live our lives.”
Assembling the extensive family trees and family narratives alongside Dr. Gates are DNA expert CeCe Moore (Founder, The DNA Detective) and expert genealogist Johni Cerny (Founder, Lineages).
“Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr,” Season 5 premieres on Tuesdays, beginning Tuesday, January 8, 2019 at 8:00 p.m. ET with an episode featuring Andy Samberg and George R.R. Martin, and the season continues into Spring 2019. Season Five includes the following episodes:
· “The Stories Encoded In Our DNA” with Andy Samberg and George R.R. Martin
· “Mystery Men” with Michael K. Williams and Felicity Huffman
· “Truth Tellers” with Christiane Amanpour, Ann Curry and Lisa Ling
· “Dreaming of a New Land (Between Worlds)” with Sheryl Sandberg, Kal Penn and Marisa Tomei
· “Freedom Tales” with S. Epatha Merkerson and Michael Strahan
· “Into The Wild” with Laura Linney, Michael Moore and Chloe Sevigny
· “Roots in Politics” with Tulsi Gabbard, Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan
· “The Eye of the Beholder” with Marina Abramovic, Alejandro Innaritu and Kehinde Wiley
· “No Laughing Matter” with Tig Notaro, Seth Meyers and Sarah Silverman
· “All in the Family” with Joe Madison, Dr. Gates’ personal DNA story and “The Finding Your Roots: The Seedlings” STEM Camp
