“Tavis Smiley Reports”

For the third Tavis Smiley Reports primetime special, Tavis travels to Louisiana’s Crescent City. Entitled “New Orleans: Been in the Storm Too Long,” the episode comes out of an ongoing collaboration with Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme that began in ’06 when Tavis Smiley aired Demme’s documentary “Right to Return” as a weeklong series. Tavis talks with some of the Big Easy’s residents about life in the city five years after Hurricane Katrina, including educators, activists, musicians Branford Marsalis and Lenny Kravitz, Treme stars John Goodman and Wendell Pierce and newly-elected Mayor Mitch Landrieu. The hour-long special premieres July 21, at 8pm/7pm Central.