Roots: The Saga of an American Family
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Roots: The Saga of an American Family
Roots: The Saga of an American Family book cover
First edition cover
Author Alex Haley
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Autobiographical novel
Publisher Doubleday
Publication date 17 August 1976
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 704 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN ISBN 0-385-03787-2 (first edition, hardback)

Roots: The Saga of an American Family is a novel written by Alex Haley and first published in 1976. It was adapted into a hugely popular, 12-hour television miniseries, also called Roots, in 1977, and a 14-hour sequel, Roots: The Next Generations, in 1979.

Contents

Plot introduction

Brought up on the stories of his elderly female relatives -- including his Grandmother Cynthia, who was emancipated from slavery with her family in 1865 -- Alex Haley purported to have traced his family history back to "the African," Kunta Kinte, captured by slave traders in 1767. For generations, each of Kunta's enslaved descendants passed down an oral history of Kunta's experiences as a free man in Gambia, along with the African words he taught them. Haley researched African village customs, slave-trading and the history of Blacks in America -- including a visit to the griot (oral historian) of his ancestor's African village -- to produce this colorful rendering of his family's history from the mid-eighteenth century through the mid-twentieth century which led him back to his heartland, Africa.

Characters in "Roots"

  • Kunta Kinte – original protagonist: a young man of the Mandinka people, grows up in the Gambia and is raised as a practicing Muslim before being captured and enslaved. Renamed "Toby"
  • Master John Waller – plantation owner who buys Kunta (called John Reynolds in the TV series)
  • Dr. William Waller – doctor of medicine and John's brother: buys Kunta from him (called William Reynolds in the TV series)
  • Belle Waller – cook to the doctor who Kinte marries (called Belle Reynolds in the TV series)
  • Kizzy Waller – daughter of Kinte and Belle (called Kizzy Reynolds in the TV series)
  • Missy Anne – Dr. Waller's niece
  • Tom Lea – slave owner in North Carolina to whom Kizzy is sold (called Tom Moore in the TV series)
  • George Lea – son to Kizzy and her brutal new owner, he is called "Chicken George" (called George Moore in the TV series)
  • Matilda – who George marries
  • Tom Murray – son of Chicken George and Matilda (called Tom Harvey in the TV series)
  • Cynthia – the youngest of Tom and Irene's eight children (grand daughter of Chicken George)
  • Bertha – one of Cynthia's children; mother of Alex Haley
  • Simon Alexander Haley – Cornell University professor and husband of Bertha; father of Alex Haley
  • Alex H. – author of the book and central character for last 30 pages; great-great-great-great-grandson (6 generations) of Kunta Kinte

Literary significance and criticism

Historical marker in front of Alex Haley's boyhood home in Henning, Tennessee (2007)
Historical marker in front of Alex Haley's boyhood home in Henning, Tennessee (2007)

Haley earned a Pulitzer Prize special award in 1977 for Roots, and the television miniseries garnered many awards, including nine Emmys and a Peabody. Haley's fame was marred, however, by charges of plagiarism. After one trial, in which he admitted that large passages of Roots were copied from The African by Harold Courlander, Haley was permitted to settle out-of-court for $650,000.[1] Haley claimed that the appropriation of Courlander's passages had been unintentional.[2] In 1988, Margaret Walker also sued Haley, claiming that Roots violated the copyright for her novel Jubilee. That case was dismissed by the court.

Additionally, the veracity of those aspects of the story which Haley claimed to be true has also been challenged.[3] Although Haley acknowledged the novel was primarily a work of fiction, he did claim that his actual ancestor was Kunta Kinte, an African taken from the village of Juffure in what is now The Gambia. According to Haley, Kunta Kinte was sold into slavery where he was given the name Toby and, while in the service of a slavemaster named John Waller, went on to have a daughter named Kizzy, Haley's great-great-great grandmother. Haley also claimed to have identified the specific slave ship and its specific voyage that transported Kunta Kinte from Africa to North America in 1767.

However, noted genealogist Elizabeth Shown Mills and the African-Americanist historian Gary B. Mills revisited Haley's research and concluded that his claims were not true.[4][5] According to the Millses, the slave named Toby who was owned by John Waller could be definitively shown to have been in North America as early as 1762. They further said that Toby died years prior to the supposed date of birth of Kizzy. There have also been suggestions that the griot in Juffure, who, during Haley's visit there, confirmed the tale of the disappearance of Kunta Kinte, had been coached to relate such a story.[6][7][8]

Although a friend of Haley's, Harvard University professor Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., one of general editors the Norton Anthology of African-American Literature, has acknowledged the doubts about Haley's claims, saying, "Most of us feel it's highly unlikely that Alex actually found the village whence his ancestors sprang. Roots is a work of the imagination rather than strict historical scholarship. It was an important event because it captured everyone's imagination."[9]

Scholarship

  • Gerber, David A. “Haley’s Roots and Our Own: An Inquiry Into the Nature of a Popular Phenomenon.” Journal of Ethnic Studies 5.3 (Fall 1977): 87-111.
  • Ryan, Tim A. Calls and Responses: The American Novel of Slavery since Gone with the Wind. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2008.
  • Skaggs, Merrill Maguire. “Roots: A New Black Myth.” Southern Quarterly 17. 1 (Fall 1978): 42-50.
  • Taylor, Helen. “‘The Griot from Tennessee’: The Saga of Alex Haley’s Roots.” Critical Quarterly 37.2 (Summer 1995): 46-62.

Television and audio adaptations

Main article: Roots (TV miniseries)

Roots was made into a hugely popular television miniseries that aired over eight consecutive nights in January 1977. Many people partially attribute the success of the miniseries to the original score by Quincy Jones. ABC network television executives chose to "dump" the series into a string of airings rather than space out the broadcasts, because they were uncertain how the public would respond to the controversial, racially-charged themes of the show. However, the series garnered enormous ratings and became an overnight sensation. Approximately 130 million Americans tuned in at some time during the eight broadcasts. The concluding episode was rated as the third most watched telecast of all time by the Nielsen corporation.

The cast of the miniseries included LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte, Leslie Uggams as Kizzy and Ben Vereen as Chicken George. A 14-hour sequel, Roots: The Next Generations, aired in 1979, featuring the leading African-American actors of the day. In 1988, a two-hour made-for-TV movie, Roots: The Gift, aired. Based on characters from the book, it starred LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte, Avery Brooks as Cletus Moyer and Kate Mulgrew as Hattie, the female leader of a group of slave catchers (coincidentally, all three actors have become prominent as leading actors in the Star Trek franchise).

In August of 2006, author Ilyasah Shabazz, daughter of Malcolm X, recorded a public service announcement for Deejay Ra's 'Hip-Hop Literacy' campaign encouraging reading of Alex Haley's books to commemorate Haley's 85th birthday.

In May of 2007, BBC America released Roots as an audiobook narrated by Avery Brooks. The release coincided with Vanguard Press's publication of a new paperback edition of the book, which had gone out of print in 2004, and with Warner Home Video's release of a 30th anniversary DVD boxed set of the mini-series.[8]

Release details

Alex Haley's boyhood home and his grave beside the home (2007)
Alex Haley's boyhood home and his grave beside the home (2007)

Notes

Alex Haley's grave beside his boyhood home in Henning, Tennessee (2007)
Alex Haley's grave beside his boyhood home in Henning, Tennessee (2007)
  1. ^ Fein, Esther B. (March 3, 1993). "Book Notes", The New York Times. 
  2. ^ Crowley, Anne S. (October 24, 1985). "Research Help Supplies Backbone for Haley's Book", Chicago Tribune. 
  3. ^ Nobile, Phillip. "Alex Haley's Hoax", The Village Voice, February 23, 1993
  4. ^ Mills, Gary B. and Elizabeth Shown Mills. "Roots and the New 'Faction': A Legitimate Tool for CLIO?", Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, January, 1981
  5. ^ Mills, Gary B. and Elizabeth Shown Mills. "The Genealogist's Assessment of Alex Haley's Roots", National Genealogical Society Quarterly, March, 1984
  6. ^ MacDonald, Edgar. "A Twig Atop Running Water -- Griot History", Virginia Genealogical Society Newsletter, July/August, 1991
  7. ^ The Roots of Alex Haley. Documentary. Directed by James Kent. BBC Bookmark, 1996
  8. ^ a b Kloer, Phil. (2007, May 25). "30 years later, Haleys re-establish 'Roots'", The News & Observer
    ""But as the 30th anniversaries of the book and the miniseries approached in recent months, neither was available anymore, due to legal and financial moves by Haley's heirs.
    Experts said that a book with the sales and reputation of "Roots" going out of print is exceedingly rare.
    Fortunately, that situation ends Tuesday in a triple marketing convergence. Vanguard Press is issuing a new trade paperback edition of the book. Warner Home Video is bringing out a new 30th anniversary DVD boxed set. And for the first time, an audio book of Roots is being released, read by actor Avery Brooks."

    "Historians also have cast a great deal of doubt as to whether Haley truly tracked down his ancestral village or was merely being told what he wanted to hear by the people who lived there."
  9. ^ Beam, Alex. "The Prize Fight Over Alex Haley's Tangled 'Roots'", Boston Globe, October 30, 1998

See also
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