There are two things I know to count on every single Martin Luther King holiday. One: the WWE will put on its most awkward episode of Monday Night Raw of the year. And two: loads and loads of MLK dramas and docs. NatGeo has chosen today to release a new trailer for their upcoming anthology series Genius: MLK/X, a major project featuring Kelvin Harrison Jr. as MLK Jr., and Aaron Pierre as Malcolm X.
This is the fourth season of the Genius brand. The first season centered on Albert Einstein, with the second on Pablo Picasso, and the third on Aretha Franklin.
For the fourth, the focus shifts to Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, two sides of the coin in the battle for civil rights. These are crucial roles for both Harrison, known for Waves, Chevalier, and Monster, and for Pierre who most recently starred in Foe and Barry Jenkins’ The Underground Railroad.
Here’s the synopsis: Genius: MLK/X follows both King and X from their formative years, where they were molded by strong fathers and traumatic injustices, to their rich, parallel stories as they shaped their identities and became the change they wished to see in the world. Influenced as children by different upbringings and experiences: King by the Jim Crow-era South and life in the church before finding his voice at Morehouse and Boston University, and X growing up under the constant, deadly violence of the Klan and falling into a life of vice and incarceration where he was introduced to the Nation of Islam and found his voice. The two visionaries ultimately rose to pioneer a movement.
The cast also features Weruche Opia as Coretta Scott King, Jayme Lawson as Betty Shabazz, and the late Ron Cephas Jones as Elijah Muhammad.
Genius: MLK/X hits National Geographic on February 1st with two episodes in the eight-episode series.