A&E Networks has released a gritty first trailer and set the premiere date for the upcoming remake of Alex Haley’s “Roots,” the company announced Thursday.

“Roots” will kick off on Memorial Day 2016 and air over four consecutive nights at 9 p.m. ET, beginning May 30. It will be simulcast on A&E and Lifetime, in addition to History.

The four-night, eight-hour event series developed by History, from A+E Studios, is a historical portrait of American slavery recounting the journey of one family and their will to survive and ultimately carry on their legacy despite hardship.

Also Read: First Look at 'Roots' Remake Shows Kunta Kinte Past and Present

The cast includes Academy Award winners Forest Whitaker and Anna Paquin; Academy Award nominee and Emmy Award winner Laurence Fishburne; Golden Globe Award-winning and Emmy Award nominated actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers; Tony Award winner Anika Noni Rose; Grammy Award winner Tip “T.I.” Harris; Emayatzy Corinealdi; Matthew Goode; Mekhi Phifer; James Purefoy; and newcomers Regé-Jean Page and Malachi Kirby.

“Nearly 40 years ago I had the privilege to be a part of an epic television event that started an important conversation in America,” LeVar Burton, co-executive producer and the original Kunta Kinte, said. “I am incredibly proud to be a part of this new retelling and start the dialogue again, at a time when it is needed more than ever.”

“Roots” is an A&E Studios production in association with Marc Toberoff and The Wolper Organization, the company that produced the original “Roots.”

Also Read: T.I., Mekhi Phifer, James Purefoy Join A&E's 'Roots' Miniseries

Will Packer, Marc Toberoff, Mark Wolper, Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal and Barry Jossen serve as executive producers. Burton and Korin D. Huggins are co-executive producers.

Questlove is executive music producer. “Roots” is directed by Phillip Noyce, Mario Van Peebles, Thomas Carter and Bruce Beresford. Arturo Interian and Michael Stiller serve as executives in charge of production for History. A&E Networks handles international distribution for “Roots.”

21 Times Hollywood Tackled Race Issues (Photos)

Selma (2014) - David Oyelowo plays civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in a biopic that explores the civil rights leader's role in the 1965 Selma protests.
Harpo Films/ Plan B Entertainment
Dear White People (2014) - This biting satire follows four black college students making their way in "post-racial" America.
Homegrown Pictures
12 Years a Slave (2013) - Chiwetel Ejiofor led the 2014 Best Picture winner, which is a true story about a freeborn black man who spent over a decade in slavery in the pre-Civil War South.
Fox
Django Unchained (2012) - Quentin Tarantino's controversial Oscar winner follows a freed slave who fights to liberate his wife from a brutal plantation owner.
The Weinstein Co.
Gran Torino (2008) - Clint Eastwood plays a grizzled Korean War veteran who reluctantly takes his young Hmong neighbor under his wing.
Warner Bros.
Crash (2004) - 2006's Best Picture Winner traces the intersecting lives of people of different races in present day Los Angeles.
Bob Yari Productions
American History X (1998) - Edward Norton plays the leader of a violent neo-Nazi gang who reevaluates his life when he sees his little brother going down the same path.
New Line
A Time to Kill (1996) - Based on the best-selling John Grisham novel, Samuel L. Jackson plays a man on trial for murdering the two white supremacists who raped his daughter who turns to an untested lawyer played by Matthew McConaughey.
Warner Bros.
Schindler's List (1993) - Steven Spielberg's unflinching look at the Holocaust through the eyes of a man who saved thousands of Polish Jews.
Universal
Malcolm X (1992) - Spike Lee and Denzel Washington teamed up for the true story of the inflammatory Nation of Islam leader.
Warner Bros.
School Ties (1992) - Brendan Fraser led this all-star cast (which included Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) in which he played tbe only Jewish student at an exclusive 1950's prep school.
Paramount
Boyz n the Hood (1991) - John Singleton's hard-hitting look at life in South Central Los Angeles saw Cuba Gooding Jr. trying to avoid the pitfalls of life in the ghetto.
Columbia Pictures
Dances with Wolves (1990) - Kevin Costner won multiple Oscars for this tale of a Civil War soldier who comes to identify with an oppressed native tribe in the American West.
Orion Pictures
Do the Right Thing (1989) - Spike Lee's searing portrait of a day in the life of a mostly black Brooklyn neighborhood during an intense heat wave.
Universal
Mississippi Burning (1988) - The true story of the disappearance of three civil rights protesters in 1960's Mississippi and the FBI agents who investigated.
Orion Pictures
The Color Purple (1985) - Whoopi Goldberg was nominated for Best Actress in this story of a black woman at the turn of the century fighting for her place in society.
Amblin
Blazing Saddles (1974) - Mel Brooks and Richard Pryor collaborated on this hysterical look at a black sheriff taking charge of a frontier town.
Warner Bros.
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) - Sidney Poitier stars in this groundbreaking film about a white woman who brings her black fiancee home to meet her parents.
Columbia Pictures
In the Heat of the Night (1967) - Sidney Poitier again challenged conventions when he portrayed a black detective investigating a murder in a rural Southern town.
United Artists
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) - Gregory Peck cemented his place in film history as Atticus Finch, a white lawyer defending a black man accused of rape, in the adaptation of Harper Lee's masterpiece.
Universal
Birth of a Nation (1915) - Considered the first true narrative film, it attracted widespread criticism for its portrayal of African Americans and its glorification of the KKK.
D.W. Griffith

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The film industry has never shied away from the controversial topic

Selma (2014) - David Oyelowo plays civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in a biopic that explores the civil rights leader's role in the 1965 Selma protests.

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