Roots (1977 miniseries)


Roots is an American television miniseries based on Alex Haley's 1976 novel '. The series first aired on ABC in January 1977. Roots received 37 Primetime Emmy Award nominations and won nine. It also won a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award. It received unprecedented Nielsen ratings for the finale, which still holds a record as the third-highest-rated episode for any type of television series, and the second-most watched overall series finale in U.S. television history. It was produced on a budget of $6.6 million.
A sequel, ', first aired in 1979, and a second sequel, , a Christmas TV movie, starring Burton and Louis Gossett Jr., first aired in 1988. A related film, Alex Haley's Queen, is based on the life of Queen Jackson Haley, who was Alex Haley's paternal grandmother.
In 2016, a remake of the original miniseries, with the same name, was commissioned by the History channel and screened by the channel on Memorial Day.

Plot

Colonial times

In The Gambia, West Africa, in 1750, Kunta Kinte is born to Omoro Kinte, a Mandinka warrior, and his wife, Binta. He was raised in a Muslim family. When Kunta reaches the age of 15, he and other adolescent boys undertake a semi-secretive tribal rite of passage, under the kintango, which includes wrestling, circumcision, philosophy, war-craft and hunting skills; while tasked to catch a bird unharmed, Kunta crosses paths with Gardener's small party of European slave hunters and their captives. Shortly after his ceremonial return, while fetching wood outside his village to make a drum for his younger brother, Kunta is captured by Gardener and four black collaborators. He is then sold to a slave trader and placed aboard the slave ship Lord Ligonier under the command of Capt. Thomas Davies for a three-month journey to Colonial America. During the voyage, an insurrection among the human cargo fails to take over the ship, but results in the death of Mr. Slater, several crew members, and several Africans including the Mandinka wrestler.
The ship eventually arrives in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1767, where the captured Africans are sold at auction as slaves. John Reynolds, a plantation owner from Spotsylvania County, Virginia, near Fredericksburg, buys Kunta and gives him the Christian name Toby. Reynolds assigns an older slave, Fiddler, to teach Kunta English and train him in the ways of servitude. Although Kunta gradually warms up to Fiddler, he wants to preserve his Mandinka heritage, and he defiantly refuses to eat pork and makes several unsuccessful attempts to escape, first breaking his leg chain with a broken tool blade he finds half buried in a field. After this attempt the overseer, Ames, gathers the slaves and directs "James" to whip Kunta until he acknowledges his new name "Toby". Fiddler comforts the bloody-backed Kunta, consoling "there will be another day". For events that occur in 1775, between the above period and the post–Revolutionary War, where the next section begins, see .

Late 18th century

1776, the adult Kunta Kinte, still haunted by his Mandinka roots and desire for freedom, tries again to escape, but a pair of slave-catchers hobble him by chopping off almost half his right foot, with a hatchet. Exasperated, John Reynolds decides to sell Kunta, which will also settle a debt with his brother Dr. William Reynolds, the local physician. John transfers several of his slaves, including Fiddler, to William. Bell, the cook for William's family, successfully treats both Kunta's mangled foot and wounded spirit. By 1780 Kunta submits to a life of servitude, and relinquishes hope of returning to Africa. He marries Bell, in a ceremony which includes jumping across a broom, Bell bears a daughter, to whom Kunta gives the name Kizzy, which means "stay put" in the Mandinka language. Fiddler continues to mentor Kunta, and dies an old man in 1790.

Turn of the 19th century

An adulterous relationship between Dr. William Reynolds and John Reynolds's wife produces a daughter, Missy Anne, whom John believes is his own. Missy Anne and Kizzy become playmates and best friends despite the social confines of Southern plantation culture. Missy Anne secretly teaches Kizzy to read and write, a skill forbidden to human chattel. In 1806 Kizzy, now in her teen years, falls in love with Noah, a spirited slave who attempts to flee North with a "traveling pass" forged by Kizzy. Dr. Reynolds, although amiable and compassionate towards his chattel, regards the pass and escape to be such an egregious breach of trust that he separately sells both Noah and Kizzy, much to the horror of Bell and Kunta. Dr. Reynolds sells Kizzy to Tom Moore, a planter in Caswell County, North Carolina, with a sexual appetite for female slaves. Kizzy gives birth to his son George, nine months after her arrival and rape.

Early 19th century

In 1824 Sam Bennett, a fancy carriage driver and a suitor who seeks to impress, takes Kizzy for a short visit to the plantation of Dr. William Reynolds, in the hope that she can see her parents. Kizzy learns that Bell has been sold away and that Kunta died two years earlier. Kizzy sees her father's grave and his wooden marker; using a small stone, she scratches over the name Toby and writes below it "Kunta Kinte," and promises him that his descendants will be free one day. George, under the tutelage of Mingo, an older slave, learns much about cockfighting, and, by direction of Tom Moore, their master, George takes over as the chief trainer, the "cock of the walk". George befriends Marcellus, a free black man, and fellow cockfighter, who informs him about the possibility of buying his own freedom. In 1831, a now-adult George continues to believe Moore to be a friend until he realizes his master's true feeling when he and his family are threatened at gunpoint by Moore and his wife, as a result of the Nat Turner rebellion. Although none of Moore's slaves are personally involved in the rebellion, they become victims of the paranoid suspicions of their master, so they start planning to buy their freedom. In an emotional scene, Kizzy reveals to George the identity of his father.
George becomes an expert in cockfighting, thus earning for himself the moniker "Chicken George". Squire James, Moore's main adversary in the pit, arranges for a British owner, Sir Eric Russell, and twenty of his cocks to visit and to participate in the local fights. Moore eventually bets a huge sum on his best bird, which George has trained, but he loses, and he cannot pay. Under the terms of a settlement between Moore and Russell, George goes to England to train cocks for Russell and to train more trainers and is forced to leave behind Kizzy, Tildy , and his sons, Tom and Lewis. Moore promises to set George free after George returns. In one brief scene Kizzy and Anne Reynolds, both elderly, face each other one last time, and Missy Anne denies that she "recollects" a "darkie by the name of Kizzy". Kizzy then spits into Anne's cup of water without Anne's realizing.

The Civil War

George returns 14 years later, in 1861, shortly before the start of the Civil War. He proudly announces that Moore, after some reluctance on Moore's part and some persuasion on George's part, has kept his word by granting George his freedom. He learns that Kizzy has died two months before, that Tom and Lewis now belong to Sam Harvey, that Tom has become a blacksmith on the Harvey plantation, and that Tom has a wife, Irene, and two sons. He also learns that his relatives have spoken well of him during his absence. He further learns that according to a law in North Carolina, if he stays 60 days in that state as a freed slave, he will lose his freedom, so he heads northward, seeking the next stage in his career as a cockfighter and awaiting the end of the war, the emancipation of the slaves, and another reunion of his family.
While the war continues to its inevitable end, a hungry and destitute young white couple from South Carolina, George and Martha Johnson, arrive and ask for help, and the slave family take them in. Martha soon gives birth, but the child is stillborn. The white couple stays on with Tom and his wife, and becomes a part of their community. Tom Harvey meets harassment at the hands of two brothers, Evan and Jemmy Brent. Eventually, a month before the surrender by the South, Jemmy deserts the Confederate Army during the final desperate days of the war, and he shows up at Tom's blacksmith shop. Tom reluctantly runs an errand for him but, on returning, he finds Jemmy trying to rape Irene, and in the resulting fight Tom drowns him in the quenching tub. Later Evan, now an officer in the Confederate cavalry, arrives at the shop, demands to know about Jemmy, gets no answer, and angrily tells Tom that he has not yet finished with him.
After the war several local white men, led by Evan Brent and wearing white hoods begin to harass and terrorize Tom, his family, and other members of his community. Tom emerges as the leader among his group. As the local blacksmith, Tom devises a horseshoeing method to identify the horses involved in the raids by the hooded men. But when Tom reports his suspicions and his evidence to the sheriff, in sympathy with Evan and knowing every member of the white mob, tips off Evan. Evan's mob leads another raid against Tom, during which Tom is whipped savagely. George Johnson, in his capacity as the overseer of the plantation, intervenes and is forced to whip Tom, to his own horror and disgust, in order to save his friend's life.
Meanwhile, the former owner of the farm, Sam Harvey, is forced to surrender all of his property to Senator Arthur Justin, a local politician intent on acquiring as much land as possible. Under the terms of the surrender, his former slaves are allowed to stay on as sharecroppers, with eventual rights to own a part of the land. However, because no written deed has been filed, the senator deems the agreement void and imposes heavy debts on the black farmers.

Postwar

The night of the whipping of Tom, George unexpectedly returns, raises the spirits of his relatives and friends, and begins to plot their next step. He reports that he has bought some land in Tennessee. Using some cunning and deception of their own, the group makes preparations for their move away. After one final confrontation with Evan and his gang, George and his company start their trek from North Carolina to Tennessee. In the last scene George and his group arrive on his land in Henning, Lauderdale County, Tennessee, to start their new life. George retells part of the story from Kunta Kinte in Africa to himself in Tennessee. Then Alex Haley briefly narrates a montage of photographs of family members connecting Tom's daughter, Cynthia, a great-great-granddaughter of Kunta Kinte, to Haley himself. For the continuation of the story from the late 19th century into the 20th century, see .

Cast

Number in parentheses indicates how many episodes in which the actor/character appears.
The miniseries was directed by Marvin J. Chomsky, John Erman, David Greene, and Gilbert Moses. It was produced by Stan Margulies. David L. Wolper was executive producer. The score was composed by Gerald Fried, and Quincy Jones for only the first episode. ABC television executives "got cold feet" after seeing the brutality depicted in the series and attempted to cut the network's predicted losses by airing the series over eight consecutive nights in January in one fell swoop. The Museum of Broadcast Communications recounts the apprehensions that Roots would flop, and how this made ABC prepare the format:
Many familiar white TV actors, like Chuck Connors, Lorne Greene, Robert Reed, and Ralph Waite, were cast against type as slave holders and traders.

Musical score and soundtrack

The film score was composed, arranged and conducted by Quincy Jones, and the soundtrack album was released on the A&M label in 1977.
Allmusic's Richard S. Ginell said "Quincy Jones has been threatening to write a long tone poem sketching the history of black music for decades now, and he has yet to do it. This project, rushed out in the wake of the 1977 TV mini-series Roots, is about as close as he has come. A brief immaculately-produced and segued suite, Roots quickly traces a timeline from Africa to the Civil War, incorporating ancient and modern African influences, a sea shanty, field hollers, and fiddle tunes, snippets of dialogue from Roots actor Lou Gossett, and some Hollywood-style movie cues.... Though some prominent jazzers turn up in the orchestra, there is not a trace of jazz to be heard. This is a timely souvenir of a cultural phenomenon, but merely a curiosity for jazz fans".

Track listing

All compositions by Quincy Jones except where noted
  1. "Motherland" − 0:29
  2. "Roots Mural Theme" − 2:12
  3. "Main Title: Mama Aifambeni" − 0:59
  4. "Behold the Only Thing Greater Than Yourself " − 1:30
  5. "Oluwa " − 2:28
  6. "Boyhood to Manhood" − 0:55
  7. "The Toubob Is Here! " − 1:01
  8. "Middle Passage " − 1:15
  9. "You in Americuh Now, African" − 0:33
  10. "Roots Mural Theme Intro " − 0:16
  11. "Ole Fiddler" − 1:12
  12. "Jumpin' de Broom " − 0:42
  13. "What Can I Do? " − 2:16
  14. "Roots Mural Theme Bridge " − 1:00
  15. "Oh Lord, Come By Here" − 3:36
  16. "Ole Fiddler/Free at Last? " − 2:24
  17. "Many Rains Ago " − 4:53

    Personnel

Reception

The series received positive reviews. Review aggregator website, Rotten Tomatoes rated it 88% "fresh" based on 8 reviews. Variety reviewed it positively summarising, "The production and performances are strong, with newcomer LeVar Burton effective as the African youngster trapped into slavery. Edward Asner, as he did in Rich Man, Poor Man a year ago, dominates the screen in his opening scenes."

Legal issues

Following the success of the original novel and the miniseries, Haley was sued by author Harold Courlander, who asserted that Roots was plagiarized from his own novel The African, published nine years prior to Roots in 1967. The resulting trial ended with an out-of-court settlement and an admission from Haley that certain passages within Roots had been copied from Courlander's work. Separately, researchers refuted Haley's claims that, as the basis for Roots, Haley had traced his own ancestry back through slavery to a very specific individual and village in Africa. After a five-week trial in federal district court, Courlander and Haley settled the case with a financial settlement and a statement that "Alex Haley acknowledges and regrets that various materials from The African by Harold Courlander found their way into his book, Roots." During the trial, presiding U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Ward stated, "Copying there is, period." In a later interview with BBC Television, Judge Ward stated, "Alex Haley perpetrated a hoax on the public." During the trial, Alex Haley had maintained that he had not read The African before writing Roots. Shortly after the trial, however, a minority studies teacher at Skidmore College, Joseph Bruchac, came forward and swore in an affidavit that he had discussed The African with Haley in 1970 or 1971 and had given his own personal copy of The African to Haley, events that took place well before publication of Roots.

Broadcast history

Episode lists

Roots originally aired on ABC for eight consecutive nights from January 23 to 30, 1977. In the United Kingdom, BBC One aired the series in six parts, starting with parts 1 to 3 over the weekend of April 8 to 11, 1977. The concluding three parts were broadcast on Sunday nights, from April 15 to May 1. The six-part version screened by the BBC is the version released on home video.
NºTitleDirected ByWritten for Television ByOriginal runtimeOriginal air date

U.S. television ratings

The miniseries was watched by an estimated 130 million and 140 million viewers total and averaged a 44.9 rating and 66% to 80% viewer share of the audience. The final episode was watched by 100 million viewers and an average of 80 million viewers watched each of the last seven episodes. Eighty-five percent of all television homes saw all or part of the miniseries. All episodes rank within the top 100 rated TV shows of all time.
On February 16–18, 2013, in honor of Black History Month and the 36th anniversary of Roots, cable network BET aired both Roots and its sequel miniseries, . Celebrating the 35th anniversary of Roots, BET premiered the miniseries on a three-day-weekend showing in December 2012, which resulted in its being seen by a total of 10.8 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratings, and became the number-one Roots telecast in cable-television history. As for the BET network, its 35th-anniversary airing of Roots became its best "non-tentpole" weekend in the network's history. On Sunday, October 18, 2015, TVOne rebroadcast Roots in high definition.

Home media

Warner Home Video, which released a three-disc 25th-anniversary DVD edition of the series in 2002, released a four-disc 30th-anniversary set on May 22, 2007. Bonus features include a new audio commentary by LeVar Burton, Cicely Tyson and Ed Asner, among other key cast members, "Remembering Roots" behind-the-scenes documentary, "Crossing Over: How Roots Captivated an Entire Nation" featurette, new interviews with key cast members and the DVD-ROM "Roots Family Tree" feature.
In 2016, Warner released the 40th anniversary Blu-ray, which restored the program to its original 8 episode format and was completely remastered from the original elements. Along with that it carried over previous bonus material and added some new material.
The miniseries has also been released in the digital format for streaming. Though these versions have the edited 6 episode format.

Awards and nominations

;Won
Primetime Emmy Awards:
Golden Globe Awards:
;Nominations
Primetime Emmy Awards:
Golden Globe Awards:
The History channel produced a remake of the miniseries after acquiring rights from David L. Wolper's son, Mark Wolper, and Alex Haley's estate. The new eight-hour miniseries, with Mark Wolper as executive producer, drew on Haley's novel and the original miniseries albeit from a contemporary perspective. Lifetime and A&E also simulcast it. Will Packer, Marc Toberoff and Mark Wolper executive produced it, alongside Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal. LeVar Burton and Korin Huggins co-executive produced it.
The four-night, eight-hour event series premiered on Memorial Day, May 30, 2016. The ensemble cast includes Forest Whitaker as Fiddler, Anna Paquin as Nancy Holt, Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Tom Lea, Anika Noni Rose as Kizzy, Tip "T.I." Harris as Cyrus, Emayatzy Corinealdi as Bell, Matthew Goode as Dr. William Waller, Mekhi Phifer as Jerusalem, James Purefoy as John Waller, introduces Regé-Jean Page as Chicken George and Malachi Kirby as Kunta Kinte, and Laurence Fishburne as Alex Haley.