To indicate that its new project about a resurgence in the Ku Klux Klan is a serious docu and not an entertainment reality show, A&E has changed the title of Generation KKK to Escaping the KKK: A Documentary Series Exposing Hate in America.
The cable channel also has sealed a new partnership with civil-rights group Color of Change. The organization will produce segments featuring civil-rights leaders to help provide context to the documentary. Those pieces will air between segments of “Escaping the KKK.” A&E will also produce a post-show town-hall special on ending hate in America.
“This what happens behind the scenes and how hate groups evolve and continue,” Rob Sharenow, executive vice president and general manager of A&E, told Variety. “That was really the focus of the entire series.”
That message, however, became muddled shortly after A&E announced the series on Sunday. Despite endorsements from civil rights leaders associated with the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League, and Black Lives Matter, criticism of the series, driven largely by people who had not seen it, mounted online.
Actors Wendell Pierce and Ellen Pompeo criticized A&E on Twitter, with Pierce calling for a boycott of the network. Pompeo urged A&E to change its marketing for the show after the network responded to her tweets to assure her that the series is a documentary. Pierce has insisted that A&E provide evidence that the subjects of the documentary were not paid, as the subjects of an entertainment reality program would be. A&E insists that no payment was made to anyone featured in the series.
