One of CNN’s long-running original series United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell, will be back on the air this summer.
The five-time Emmy Award-winning docu-series returns for its seventh season on Sunday, July 10, with seven new episodes. This season Bell will crisscross the country, visiting communities to explore race, class and the unique challenges they face.
Bell will visit Appalachia, where he will explore the significant and largely unknown population of Black Americans who call the area home. He will also be in Boston, examining the mental health issues affecting the sports world.
Other stops this season include his home state of California, Hawaii, New York City, South Dakota and Maricopa County in Arizona, where he will investigate the origins of “wokeness” and how it became a political issue.
“Neither Covid, nor misinformation, nor political gridlock, nor the gloom of the feeling that American democracy is crumbling will keep me from my appointed duty of traveling the country for another season of United Shades of America,” Bell said in a statement.
Amy Entelis, CNN’s evp of talent and content development, added, “For the last seven years, United Shades of America has been a cornerstone of the CNN Original Series brand and Kamau’s unparalleled ability to weave his natural curiosity and sense of humor together have ignited many important—and at times vital—conversations around race and society in this country.”
Zero Point Zero Productions produces United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell, the same people who made CNN’s Emmy Award-winning Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown starring the late Anthony Bourdain.
Bell serves as an executive producer of the series alongside Lydia Tenegalia, Chris Collins, Sandra Zweig, and Morgan Fallon for Zero Point Zero; Jimmy Fox, Layla Smith and Tim Pastore for Main Event Media/All3Media; and Amy Entelis and Lyle Gamm for CNN Original Series.