PBS and WNET are investigating Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s decision to censor his celebrity-genealogy series Finding Your Roots after getting a request from Ben Affleck that the program not reveal he had a slave-owning ancestor. Affleck has expressed regret for seeking to have the information omitted from the episode that featured the actor and aired last October.
The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross is a new PBS documentary series that traces 500 years of black history. The series starts with what host Henry Louis Gates Jr. deems a downright scoop. It turns out the very first African to come to North America was a free man accompanying Spanish explorers who arrived in Florida in 1513.
