(Photo: National Geographic)

The fourth season of the biographical anthology series Genius has a premiere date. The new season, focusing on the lives of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, will arrive early next year. The series was renewed for a fourth season in December 2020.

Starring Kelvin Harrison Jr., Aaron Pierre, Weruche Opia, Jayme Lawson, and Ron Cephas Jones (in his final role), Genius: MLK/X will have eight episodes and will focus on how the two men helped shape America during the 1960s.

National Geographic revealed more about the upcoming season in a press release.

At National Geographic’s content showcase at Hall des Lumières, Nat Geo executive vice president of Scripted and Documentary Films, Carolyn Bernstein, announced that the first two episodes of the next installment of the award-winning GENIUS franchise, GENIUS: MLK/X, will premiere Feb. 1 on National Geographic and stream the next day on Disney+ and Hulu, with two new episodes debuting weekly on all platforms. In a first for the Emmy Award-winning anthology series, the eight-part series will focus on two iconic geniuses – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X – and how their dueling philosophies helped usher America through the Civil Rights Movement.

This season is once again produced by 20th Television with Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Imagine Television, as well as the company’s president of Television, Kristen Zolner, along with the award-winning duo Reggie Rock Bythewood (“Swagger,” “Shots Fired”) and Gina Prince-Bythewood (“The Woman King,” “Shots Fired”), who are responsible for groundbreaking films and series under their production company Undisputed Cinema. Raphael Jackson Jr. and Damione Macedon (“Power,” “Mosquito Coast”) are showrunners and executive producers.

As previously announced, the ensemble cast includes Kelvin Harrison Jr. (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”) as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Aaron Pierre (“The Underground Railroad”) as Malcolm X, Weruche Opia (“I May Destroy You”) as Coretta Scott King, and Jayme Lawson (“The Batman”) as Betty Shabazz. The series also marks one of the last roles for Emmy-winning actor Ron Cephas Jones (“This is Us”).

With series like GENIUS: MLK/X, Undisputed Cinema aims to tell timely and timeless character-driven stories that focus on the humanity of people of color.

GENIUS: MLK/X follows both King and X from their formative years, where they were molded by strong fathers and traumatic injustices, to their rich, parallel stories as they shaped their identities and became the change they wished to see in the world. Influenced as children by different upbringings and experiences: King by the Jim Crow-era South and life in the church before finding his voice at Morehouse and Boston University, and X growing up under the constant, deadly violence of the Klan and falling into a life of vice and incarceration where he was introduced to the Nation of Islam and found his voice. The two visionaries ultimately rose to pioneer a movement.

The series offers a deeper look into untapped moments in their lives as husbands, fathers, brothers and sons, taking them off the iconic T-shirts to show their humanity. GENIUS: MLK/X brings their wives, Coretta Scott King and Betty Shabazz, who are often portrayed as peripheral figures, to the forefront and shows them as formidable equals of the Movement. Episodes will explore the moments between the monumental historical events we’ve come to know and shine a light on how each leader and those closest to them questioned their faith, resolve and decisions as they navigated the rigors of balancing a public persona with a private life. While King and X met only once and often challenged each other’s views, neither would have been as successful without the other.

A behind-the-scenes look for Genius season four is below.

What do you think? Are you excited for this new season of Genius? Do you plan to watch it when it arrives in February?