Brian Lear on WNYC here in in Black History Month, one of the new things on TV is a new season

of the National Geographic series Genius. In the past, they've done Albert Einstein,

Pablo Picasso, and Aretha Franklin. This

season series is called Genius MLK slash X about Martin Luther King and

Malcolm X. It's also about their wives, Betty Shabazz and Coretta Scott King

and the vital roles they played in the struggle and in their husband's work. This is not a documentary

series though, it's an acted series here's a 30 second sample of

Aaron Pierre as Malcolm X now I've been to Detroit Philadelphia Chicago and even for our southern folks here, Edgewood.

The same truth exists up and down the so-called land of the free. We're all still negotiating something that should

be ours. So what's the solution? Pride and dignity within self.

Caring about who we are and when we understand our worth and have pride within it, so too will everyone else.

Aaron Pierre as Malcolm X in the National Geographic Series,

Genius, MLK slash X.

One of the points of the series

is to portray how the public images of the two men

are too often reduced to oversimplistic contrasts of King the Unifier and

Malcolm the Militant and so we'll talk now to a special guest who is a

consultant to the series and wrote a book that inspired it a many time guest on this show

Peneel Joseph professor of history and public affairs and founding director of the center for the

study of race and democracy at the University of Texas at Austin

and author of books including the Third Reconstruction, America's Struggle for Racial

Justice in the 21st century,

...