My producers and I worked with these consultants and came up with seventy [stories] which we think are exemplary of the larger arc of African-American history between 1513 and 2013. We covered half a millennium, and it's amazing.

The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred.

Ever since I watched 'Roots,' I've dreamed of tracing my African ancestry and helping other people do the same.

The first slave to read and write was the first to run away.

Suffering does not necessarily ennoble you.

Precisely that, covering 500 years of African-American history in six hours. I've been working on this for seven years. The biggest challenge was deciding which stories to tell.

I don't think the riots derailed the civil rights movement.