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'Roots' to get its first release on Blu-ray on June 7, a week after the A&E remake debuts

Roots: The Complete Original Series will come to Blu-ray for the first time ever on June 7, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment announced today.

It will be available digitally on May 16. The series chronicles the life of Kunta Kinte, from his capture to his enslavement to his heirs.

The miniseries, based on Alex Haley's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, will be released in its original eight parts. Extras include a new featurette, "The Cast Looks Back," in which LeVar Burton, John Amos, Louis Gossett Jr, Ben Vereen, Cicely Tyson and Ed Asner, among others, talk about the series and how it affected them.

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The Emmy, Golden Globe and Peabody award-winning Roots also had several sequels, including Roots: The Next Generations, which starred Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland and Ruby Dee with Marlon Brando in one episode; Roots: The Gift; and Queen, which starred Halle Berry as the title character.

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The original Roots received 37 Emmy nominations. 

The well-received Roots also pushed a different type of conversation about race. (As a little girl, I remember getting apologies from folks.)

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And, now, star LeVar Burton is producer, along with Will Packer (Straight Outta Compton), on a remake that's set to air, fittingly, on Memorial Day, May 30, on History, A&E and Lifetime. This one is as star-studded as the first, with Forest Whitaker, Anna Paquin, Anika Noni Rose and Laurence Fishburne among the cast.

The moving first trailer was released earlier this month.

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