TV One’s Find Our Missing, a 10-episode, one-hour docu-drama series that aims to draw attention to missing Black Americans, will debut on Janurary 18, 2012. Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning actress S. Epatha Merkerson, formerly of NBC’s Law & Order will host the show devoted to those who are so often denied the national media coverage that they deserve.

[WATCH THE TRAILER FOR “FIND OUR MISSING”]

Viewers will get look into the lives of missing persons via the family, friends and investigators who have been searching frantically for them. Derrica Wilson of Black and Missing Foundation, Incorporated, will appear on future episodes detailing her organizations’ efforts in supporting the frantic searches that the news seems to have forgotten. Each episode will provide contact information for local police and FBI offices so that viewers may be able to share any information they may have about the missing.

[CHECK OUT OUR INTERVIEW WITH THE FOUNDERS OF BLACK AND MISSING]

TV One President and CEO Wonya Lucas feels that this new series will have a major impact. Find Our Missing will be dramatic television, but we also hope that TV One’s combined efforts on air, through digital and social media, and through partnerships will also draw attention to a critical issue and bring new information to light for the loved ones of the missing featured in this series, and for others. We hope these profiles will trigger the memory of someone who might have seen something, and feel compelled to come forward and help these families who have suffered for so long.”

“Though these victims may be gone, through this show we want to say they are no longer forgotten,” said Merkerson.  “I am honored to host Find Our Missing and hope that my participation not only can help shine the spotlight on the plight of missing people of color, but that we can help uncover some answers and ultimately find justice for the sake of those missing and their families and friends.”

Missing persons profiled on Find Our Missing include Yasmin Acree, a 15-year-old honor student from Chicago who disappeared from her home in the middle of the night in 2008; Monica Bowie, a 34-year-old Atlanta woman, who is believed to have been kidnapped in 2007 from the parking deck of her Atlanta apartment complex; Jaliek Rainwalker, a 12-year-old Greenwich, NY boy who went missing in November 2008 after a car ride with his soon-to-be adoptive father; Diamond and Tionda Bradley, 3-and 10 year-old sisters from Chicago, who disappeared in July 2001 when their mother left them alone to go to work; 3-year-old Lemoine Allen & 2-year-old Kreneice Jackson, who both disappeared from the front of Jimmy Jackson grocery store May 10, 1992 in Edgard, MS ; 48-year-old Hattie Brown, a Gulf War veteran who disappeared in 2009 from her home in Halifax County, VA, after having been seen filling up at a gas station with her nephew – her car was found two months later destroyed by fire; 2-year-old Teekah Lewis of Tacoma, WA, who disappeared in 1999 at a bowling alley with her family just feet away.

Find Our Missing debuts on Janurary 18th, 2012 at 10pm EST on TV One. Check local listings.