Photo credit: Brendan Kownacki
“I’m happy to be back here today, with a show that’s really about what this museum is about,” said Academy Award Winner John Legend about the National Museum of African American History and Culture where the the cast of the WGN America hit “Underground” gathered with to premiere season 2 of the historical drama. “Telling the story of African American history and American history, particularly at this moment in African American history, that was in one way one of the most devastating and awful times for a lot of African Americans, but also a moment when there were some who chose to rise up.”
John Legend
The show chronicles a group of slaves who plan a bold journey to freedom, escaping from a Georgia plantation into a 600 mile journey to find liberation during one of the most devicive times in our nation’s history.
Legend, who is an executive producer on the project (and who guest stars in the series as Frederick Douglass) spoke with Hollywood on the Potomac along with his cast about what the show means in today’s political climate, what it is like to bring it to the historic African American History Museum, and just what developments we can expect in the story.
Legend said that his own opportunity to play the well-known Douglass helps “to connect the surface level knowledge that most people have about that movement with our show.” Underground adds an emotional component by humanizing the those who were a part of the underground railroad…we know that it was a saving method for runaway slaves, but the gneral the character of slave is often too broad to think of the real implications of what was happening.
Aldis Hodge
“The underground railroad is sort of like a myth that a lot of kids hear about or something is mentioned but the real story has never been told,” added Aldis Hodge who plays Noah in the series. Cast-mate Alano Miller continues, “it has been a page, then a paragraph, then a sentence in a book; it’s always been in a museum, and now we’re finally in a place where we can show and talk about it more and people can feel it in a different way.”
Jurnee Smollett-Bell
The first season of the show was well received and debuted in March 2016 before getting an almost immediate renewal for a second season. “We are a part of the American history, this beautiful quilt that has been woven together” said actress Jurnee Smollett-Bell, who plays Rosalee. Describing the opportunity to bring their hybrid fiction story to the African American History museum, she called it “holy ground” and said it was an incredible honor to premiere their season 2 in the museum and look at history “through the African American lens” because it gives a chance to highlight characters and character archetypes of people who have been widely overlooked in our consciousness.
Amirah Vann
Amirah Vann, who plays Ernestine in the show described the premiere in museum as a great honor because they act as such parallel resources to reveal a part of US history, even if it is one of the darker times from our past, “really embracing where we came from as African Americans and showing up here [in the US] under horrendous circumstances, but then it continues and by the time you’re leaving the museum, you’re leaving hopeful for the future.”
They say that if we do not learn history, we are doomed to repeat is and Underground represents another of Hollywood’s most recent efforts to tell the stories of our past so we can push forward, never repeat our mistakes and be hopeful for the future.
“I’m happy to be back here today with a show that’s really about what this museum is about,” said Legend about the National Museum of African American History and Culture. WGN America’s hit “Underground” premieres season 2 of the historical drama on March 8.
A look back at season one of Underground. Interviews by Janet Donovan with Andrew Dubbs on camera:
