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Finding Your Roots Season 2 Episodes
Season 2 Episode Guide
10 Episodes 2014 - 2014
Episode 1
In Search of Our Fathers: Stephen King, Gloria Reuben and Courtney B. Vance
Tue, Sep 23, 201453 mins
Henry Louis Gates explores the paternal ancestry of famous horror novelist Stephen King, actress Gloria Reuben and actor Courtney B. Vance. Shocking discoveries are made.
Episode 2
Born Champions
Tue, Sep 30, 201453 mins
The families of three of America's greatest athletes, former MLB star Derek Jeter, former world tennis champion Billie Jean King, and former WNBA star Rebecca Lobo, are explored by Henry Louis Gates.
Episode 3
Our American Storytellers
Tue, Oct 7, 201453 mins
From PBS - Three iconic American storytellers have spent their lives chronicling the lives of others, while knowing almost nothing about their own family history. Ken Burns confronts the reality of his southern ancestors' role in the Civil War, including Confederate soldiers held captive and a slave-owning Virginian. Anderson Cooper, scion of one of America's most storied families, the Vanderbilts, longs to know more about his father's southern roots -- including the story of an ancestor murdered by one his slaves. Anna Deavere Smith learns the story of her great-grandfather Basil Biggs, a free black man and former conductor on the Underground Railroad. All three guests' ancestors intersect at pivotal moments of American history.
Episode 4
Roots of Freedom
Tue, Oct 14, 201453 mins
From PBS - These three guests' families have long been engaged in the battle for freedom and civil rights, but they had no idea that those principles were passed down through generations of ancestors. Ben Affleck's mother was a Freedom Rider in 1964 and her roots include the 19th-century spiritualist Almon French, who attempted to heal the bereaved masses in the aftermath of the Civil War; NAACP president Ben Jealous learns the heroic story of his great-grandfather Peter G. Morgan, a free black man who was forced to purchase his own wife and family in order to keep them safe; and actress Khandi Alexander, who never knew who her grandfather was, learns that he may have been murdered in the Jim Crow-era South.
Episode 5
The Melting Pot
Tue, Oct 21, 201453 mins
From PBS - Three celebrity chefs who cook the food of their ancestors discover family members who have shaped their lives -- and America's cuisine. Tom Colicchio of "Top Chef" learns the hardships his family endured (famine, bandits) living in a tiny town in Northern Italy and celebrates the courage of his original immigrant ancestor, a man who crossed the Atlantic many times to bring the Colicchios to the United States; Ming Tsai, the child of immigrants who fled Mao's Cultural Revolution, was raised to believe that his that his family's Chinese past was obliterated by the Communists -- instead, he finds that his roots can be traced back more than 2,000 years, yielding a large family tree; and Aaron Sanchez discovers that his family's treasured Mexican roots include people who were Spaniards, Africans and Native Americans.
Episode 6
We Come from People
Tue, Oct 28, 201453 mins
From PBS - Trace three guests' roots into the heart of slavery, revealing that there is no singular narrative and challenging preconceptions of an era that profoundly shaped our nation's sense of itself. Hip-hop artist Nas discovers a web of his slave ancestors and their intimate relationship with their slave master; award-winning actress Angela Bassett meets ancestors whose slave family tragedy is rivaled only by a triumphant emancipation story; and presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett goes back in time more than 200 years to meet a formidable line-up of free people of color -- all of them of trailblazers.
Episode 7
Our People, Our Traditions
Tue, Nov 4, 201453 mins
From PBS - Three celebrated Americans who share not only a Jewish heritage but also a history of perseverance in the face of withering opposition. Tony Kushner delves into the history of the Holocaust to discover his ancestors' fate; Carole King discovers the origins of her family name and confronts the reality of the discrimination her ancestors faced once they arrived in America; and Alan Dershowitz discovers that the first Hassidic synagogue in Brooklyn, started by his great grandfather, played a secret role in World War II. Now woven into the fabric of the American experience the immigrant stories of our guests' ancestors provide an extraordinary testimony to this country's triumph over adversity.
Episode 8
The British Are Coming
Tue, Nov 11, 201453 mins
From PBS - Three guests whose ancestry demonstrates the extraordinary influence of the British Empire during the 18th and early 19th century: Sally Field discovers that she descends from William Bradford, who arrived on the Mayflower and helped his fellow English Puritans establish their new lives in colonial America and later discovers that her ancestors sided with the British crown during our nation's War of Independence and paid the ultimate price; Deepak Chopra's family made a similar gamble while living under harsh British colonial rule in India, where his grandparents pledged their loyalty to the British in hopes of achieving a higher place in society, and later his father chose to fight alongside British soldiers during World War II; Sting's story goes back centuries in England where we find that being close to the seat of Empire doesn't mean that life is any better for those who fueled Great Britain's world dominance during the Pax Britannica by building its merchant ships and working in its coal mines, and who toiled under unbearable working conditions and Dickensian poverty--conditions that would lead to the "Age of Revolution," in which the young United States was a key player.
Episode 9
Ancient Roots
Tue, Nov 18, 201453 mins
Henry Louis Gates Jr. explores the Greek ancestry of comedienne Tina Fey, comedian and radio host David Sedaris and journalist and TV host George Stephanopoulos.
Episode 10
Decoding Our Past Through DNA
Tue, Nov 25, 201453 mins
From PBS - Deval Patrick is the first African American Governor of Massachusetts, and Jessica Alba is an actress who proudly embraces her Mexican American heritage. But cutting edge DNA analysis reveals that their family trees in fact contain a far more diverse range of cultures and races. Jessica Alba descends from, Jewish ancestors, Mayans and the official cartographer of France's King Louis the 14th. Deval Patrick's roots lead to a black homesteader in Colorado and a white master who gave his former slave land after the Civil War. We also use DNA to delve deeper into the families of other guests from the series including Valerie Jarrett, Anderson Cooper and to overcome dead ends on host Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s own tree. The secrets encoded in their genomes challenge these guests' ideas about their families' histories and their identities today.