Lisa Clemmons

Com 290

February 14, 2003

 

Roots

 

Background

 

 

His name was Kunta Kinte.  Kidnapped from Africa and enslaved in America in 1767, he refused to accept his slave name of Toby.  Heirs kept his heroic defiance alive, whispering the name of Kunta Kinte from one generation to the next until it reached a young, boy growing up in Tennessee.  His name was Alex Haley and he “proclaimed Kunta Kinte’s name to the world.” (Alex Haley)

                 

Roots prompted Americans of many backgrounds to take a closer look into their personal heritage, ancestry, and ethnic identity.  They raised consciousness about the habits, rituals, values, and myths of African culture and ways.  The novel and the television program elevated respect for the oral tradition’s imprint on our cultural record, and they cast light on the importance of each family’s contribution to American history.

 

While on a journalistic assignment in London, Haley saw the Rosette stone (the artifact that was the key to decoding hieroglyphics).  The moment inspired him.  Haley’s research led him to a Gambian oral historian called a griot.  The old man provided the missing link to the family saga.  Haley was shaping, repeating from memory the African portion of the history Haley first heard from his grandmother.

 

The book was only half completed.  The author was not well known, but film maker David Wolper could see that the family history Alex Haley was writing was monumental impact and significance.  In 1974 Wolper acquired the rights to Roots.

Roots initially unfolded over eight consecutive nights, January 23-30, 1977.  As the history uncovered by Haley played on the screen, television history was being made.  Roots became the highest-rated, most talked-about program ever. 

 

In addition to being one of the most-watched series of all time, Roots is one of the most highly honored.  Among the 145 honors, nine of them were Emmy Award and the prestigious Peabody Award “for dramatically exposing us to an aspect of our history that many of us never knew but all of us will never forget.”  (TV Guide)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I           Introduction

 

Alexander Palmer Haley (1925-1992), was born in Ithaca, New York, and grew up in Henning, Tennessee, with maternal relatives who spent many hours telling family stories, from his maternal grandmother, Cynthia Palmer, who traced the family genealogy to Haley’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, who was an African, called Kunta Kinte.

 

Haley completed high school at the age of 15 and attended two years of college, but was uninspired by his studies and left school to join the United States Coast Guard.  After returning home in 1959, he became a self-taught writer.  Haley wrote for publications such as Readers’ Digest, Harper’s, and the New York Times.  In 1962 he sold an interview with jazz musician Miles Davis to playboy that began him on his way.

 

Some of his famous works and interviews included, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), which sold more than five million copies.  Roots (1977) took Haley 12 years to complete and it sold 8.5 million copies and translated into 26 languages. When the series came out 130 million Americans watched it.  The book won the National Book Award and special Pulitzer Prize.  In 1979, Roots: The next Generation followed.  Queen: The story of an American Family (his grandmother, 1992).

 

II         Episode one

Through the lineage of one family, Haley and his Pulitzer Prize winning Roots told the story for all Americans.

• The powerful tale begins in Gambia, West Africa.  Kinte (LaVar Burton)
• son of Omoro and Binta, distinguishes himself in manhood training rituals.
• Slaves’ traders sweeping through the countryside captures him.
• Chained with other unfortunates, Kunta begins an agonized odyssey to the new world.

 

“Extraordinary.  More than a drama, we are witnessing an experience.”

                                                                     Sandra Vanocur (The Washington Post)

 

III        Episode two   

Despite a violent shipboard rebellion, the vessel completes its voyage and Kunta endures the indignity of an Annapolis slave auction.

• Fiddler (Lou Gossett, Jr.), the slave in charge of Kunta’s training, becomes his only friend
• A friendship that’s tested when Kunta plans an escape so he can be with Fanta. (Ren Woods)  Fanta a friend of Kunta’s from Africa.

 

“The impact of this extraordinary odyssey wallops you.” 

                                                                                             Mademoiselle

 

 

 

 

IV        Episode three

• On several occasions, young Kunta escapes his captors.
• After one incident, he is caught and brutally crippled by slave hunters
• He marries Belle, the woman who nurses him back to health.
• An opportunity to escape occurs again, but instead Kunta chooses his family over freedom
• He and Belle name their newborn daughter Kizzy, a name based on an African word meaning “stay put.”

 

“A rich tapestry, vividly alive with tragedy, comedy, bitterness and hope.”

                                                                                       

                                                                                     Julius Inman (Indiannapolis Star)

 

V         Episode four

• Despite their hardships, Kunta family’s bonds are strong.
• Their world is turned upside down when Kizzy, now a teenager, is sold to a distant plantation owner who impregnates her.
• Kizzy bears a son, George and she raises him and familiarizes him with African sounds and folktales.
• He grows up to become a gamecock trainer with the nickname “Chicken George.”
• Meanwhile, Kizzy desperately misses her family.  Kizzy returnes to her parents home and learns they have died.

 

“By almost every measure, Roots stands in a class by itself.”

                                                                   

                                                                                        Don Oakley (Oklahoma Journal)

 

VI        Episode five

• Chicken George is now married with two sons, and he operates a successful cockfight business for his owner. 
• His master’s reckless betting forces George to leave his family behind when he travels to England as payment for his owner’s gambling debt.
• Fourteen years later he returns home as the first of Kunta’s family to be free.
• The Civil War erupts, along with slaves rebellions.

 

“Heartrending Experience.”            Mel Leavitt (Clarion Herald)

 

VII      Episode six

 

• Chicken George fights for the Union and, when the war is over, relocated his family to Tennessee.
• The terror continues even after the blacks are emancipated.
• The KKK Klan’s nightriders terrorize blacks and Tom, George’s son because Tom is the blacksmith for these Klan members and can identify them.

 

Genre…………………Changing portraits of Blacks

 

 

Symbolic Interactionist Criticism

 

Order………………….Slaves emancipated (the law)

 

Pollution………………Whites still treating ex-slaves as slaves (violation)

 

Guilt…………………..Sheriff knowing this was wrong

 

Scapegoat…………….used the KKK to do his dirty work to keep his image

 

Redeemed……………Sheriff feels redeemed, no one knows he didn’t protect the blacks

 

Critics

 

Critics questioned Haley’s method of presenting fiction as fact.  Haley, however, repeatedly defended his methods as a necessary way of taping the emotional poignancy of his subject.

 

Skeptics claimed that the griot, Kebba Kunji FoFana, an old man, was a well-known trickster and told Haley just what he wanted to hear.  This was not true.  Many African tribes have they own family griot that tells the story of the family linage.

 

Popularity

 

After Roots aired, interest in genealogy blossomed in the United States.

 

Some 267 colleges included Roots in their coursework. 

 

New books on genealogy flourished as heritage research became a popular hobby.

 

Roots, is still around today because of Black history month and people are still interested in their family’s history.

 

 

 

 

For more information on Roots, click on to these websites

 

http://www.Kintehaley.org/beginning.html

 

http://www.Kintehaley.org/advertisement.html

 

http://www.Kintehaley.org/mission.html

 

http://www.Kintehaley.org/memorial.html

 

http://www.Kintehaley.org/contact.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.