Roots: The Saga of an American Family

Roots: The Saga of an American Family
First edition cover
Author(s)	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)
OCLC Number	2188350
Dewey Decimal	929/.2/0973
LC Classification	E185.97.H24 A33

Roots: The Saga of an American Family is a novel written by Alex Haley and first published in 1976. It tells the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent and sold into slavery in the United States, and follows his life and the lives of his descendants in the U.S. down to Haley. The release of the novel, combined with its hugely popular television adaptation, Roots (1977), led to a cultural sensation in the United States. The novel spent 46 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller List, including 22 weeks in that list's top spot.

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 Haley's admission that some passages within Roots had been copied from Courlander's work. Separately, researchers refuted Haley's claims that, as the basis for Roots, he had successfully traced his own ancestry back through slavery to a specific individual and village in Africa.

Plot introduction

Brought up on the stories of his elderly female relatives—including his Grandmother Cynthia, whose father was emancipated from slavery in 1865—Alex Haley purported to have traced his family history back to "the African," Kunta Kinte, captured by members of a contentious tribe and sold to 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 African Americans in America—including a visit to the griot (oral historian) of his ancestor's African village. He created a colorful and fictional history of his family from the mid-eighteenth century through the mid-twentieth century, which led him back to his heartland of Africa.

Characters in "Roots"

• Kunta Kinte – original protagonist: a young man of the Mandinka people, grows up in the Gambia in a small village called Juffure and is raised as a practising Muslim before being captured and enslaved. Renamed Toby
• John Waller – planter, 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; Kunta marries Belle (called Belle Reynolds in the TV series)
• Kizzy Waller – daughter of Kunta and Belle (called Kizzy Reynolds in the TV series)
• Missy Anne – Dr. Waller's niece, who lives off the plantation but visits Dr Waller regularly. She befriends Kizzy and teaches her the basics of reading/writing by playing "school".
• 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 Tom Lea, he is called "Chicken George" (last name is Moore, in the TV series)
• Matilda – whom 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 – professor and husband of Bertha; father of Alex Haley
• Alex Haley – author of the book and central character for last 30 pages; great-great-great-great-grandson (7 generations) of Kunta Kinte.

Reception

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

Published in October 1976 amid significant advance expectations, Roots was immediately successful, garnering a slew of positive reviews and debuting at #5 of The New York Times Best Seller list (with The Times choosing to classify it as non-fiction). By mid-November, it had risen to the #1 spot on the list. The television adaptation of the book aired in January 1977, further fueling book sales. Within seven months of its release, Roots had sold over 1.5 million copies.

In total, Roots spent 22 weeks at the #1 spot on The Times' list, including each of the first 18 weeks of 1977, before falling to #3 on May 8. It did not fall off of the list entirely until August 7. Ultimately, it was on the list for a total 46 weeks. Together, the success of the novel and its 1977 television adaptation, sparked an explosion of interest in the fields of genealogy and researching family histories.

Haley earned a Pulitzer Prize special award in 1977 for Roots and the television miniseries garnered many awards, including nine Emmys and a Peabody.

Criticism

Plagiarism

See also: Harold Courlander: Roots and the issue of plagiarism

The exceptional success of Roots was marred, however, by charges of plagiarism in separate lawsuits, each filed against Haley in the spring of 1977, by Harold Courlander and Margaret Walker Alexander. Courlander charged that Roots was copied largely from his novel The African. Alexander claimed that her novel, Jubilee, had been plagiarized by Roots. Legal proceedings in each case were concluded late in 1978. Courlander's suit was settled out of court for $650,000 and an acknowledgment from Haley that certain passages within Roots were copied from The African. Haley claimed that the appropriation of Courlander's passages had been unintentional. Alexander's case was dismissed by the court, which, in comparing the content of Roots with that of Jubliee, found that "no actionable similarities exist between the works."

Inaccuracies

Certain minor conflicts arise in language used by characters in the book. In the earlier section of the book based in Africa, Omoro explains to his son Kunta that the toubob or white-run ships fire a 19-gun (cannon) salute to the local king on arrival. But, in the rest of the section, the locals don't know about guns, which they describe as strange “firesticks”. A cannon on the slave ship Lord Ligonier is described as a mystery to the captives. In other cases, the slaves refer to the “First Continental Congress” underway. It would have been unlikely for it to be called the first congress, as no one yet knew there would be a second.

Critics challenged aspects of the story which Haley claimed to be true. Although Haley acknowledged the novel was primarily a work of fiction, he claimed that his ancestor was Kunta Kinte, an African taken from the village of Juffure in what is now The Gambia. He said that Kunta Kinte was sold into slavery where he was given the name Toby. While held by John Waller, Kinte had a daughter named Kizzy, who was Haley's great-great-great grandmother. Haley said that he had identified the slave ship that transported Kunta Kinte from Africa to North America in 1767.

In the concluding chapter of Roots Alex Haley said:

“

To the best of my knowledge and of my effort, every lineage statement within Roots is from either my African or American families' carefully preserved oral history, much of which I have been able conventionally to corroborate with documents. Those documents, along with the myriad textural details of what were contemporary indigenous lifestyles, cultural history, and such that give Roots flesh have come from years of intensive research in fifty-odd libraries, archives, and other repositories on three continents.

”

Haley said that most of the dialogue and necessary incidents are novelized, based on what he knew took place and what the research led him to feel took place.

The Africanist historian Donald R. Wright and the African-Americanist historian Gary B. Mills, the latter with genealogist Elizabeth Shown Mills, separately revisited Haley's research and concluded that his claims were not true. Professor Wright focused on Haley's identification and portrayal of alleged African ancestors, the unreliability of twentieth-century griots and village elders for historical accounts of the 1700s, and significant inaccuracies in the portrayal of Juffure as a pastoral village. The Millses focused upon Haley's identification and portrayal of four generations of slave forebears and masters. Their reportage concluded: "Those same plantation records, wills, and censuses cited by Mr. Haley not only fail to document his story, but they contradict each and every pre-Civil War statement of Afro-American lineage in Roots." Haley responded by criticizing his detractors' reliance upon written records in their evaluation of his work, contending that such records were "sporadic" and frequently inaccurate with regard to items such as slave births and ownership transactions. Haley asserted that for African-American genealogy, "well-kept oral history is without question the best source."

Concerns were raised about the trustworthiness of Kebba Fofana from The Gambia, whom Haley had cited as a significant source. He said Fofana was a griot in Juffure, who, during Haley's visit there, confirmed the tale of the disappearance of Kunta Kinte. The separate investigations by Mark Ottaway of The Sunday Times and Professor Wright found that Fofana was not a genuine griot and that he was aware of Haley's pending visit. He may have been coached to relate a story matching Haley's chronicle. In subsequent re-tellings, details of Fofana's story indeed failed to match that previous account. Haley did not respond directly to the work of either Wright or Ottaway, but said that the latter's article was "unwarranted, unfair and unjust", and added that he had no reason to think Fofana unreliable.

Harvard University professor Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was a personal friend of Haley's but acknowledged doubts about his 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."

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.
• Hudson, Michelle. "The Effect of 'Roots' and the Bicentennial on Genealogical Interest among Patrons of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History," Journal of Mississippi History 1991 53(4): 321-336
• Mills, Gary B. and Elizabeth Shown Mills. "Roots and the New 'Faction': A Legitimate Tool for CLIO?", Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 89 (January 1981): 3-26. PDF at Historic Pathways [3].
• 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.
• Wright, Donald R. "Uprooting Kunta Kinte: On the Perils of Relying on Encyclopedic Informants," History of Africa 8 (1981): 205-217.

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. 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. 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 on January 30, 1977 has been ranked 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 December 1988, ABC aired a two-hour made-for-TV movie: Roots: The Gift. Based on characters from the book, it starred LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte, Avery Brooks as Cletus Moyer, Kate Mulgrew as bounty hunter Hattie Carraway, and Tim Russ as house slave Marcellus (coincidentally, all four actors have become prominent as leading actors in the Star Trek franchise).

In August 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 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.

Release details

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

• 1976, USA, Doubleday Books (ISBN 0-385-03787-2), Pub date 12 September 1976, hardback (First edition)
• 1977, UK, Hutchinson (ISBN 0-09-129680-3), Pub date ? April 1977, hardback
• 1978, UK, Picador (ISBN 0-330-25301-8), Pub date 14 April 1978, paperback
• 1980, USA, Bantam Books (ISBN 0-685-01405-3), Pub date ? November 1980, paperback (Teacher's guide)
• 1982, UK, GK Hall (ISBN 0-8161-6639-0), Pub date ? December 1982, hardback
• 1985, USA, Vintage (ISBN 0-09-952200-4), Pub date ? May 1985, paperback
• 1992, USA, Bantam Doubleday Dell (ISBN 0-440-17464-3), Pub date 31 December 1992, paperback
• 1994, USA, Vintage (ISBN 0-09-936281-3), Pub date 21 January 1994, paperback
• 1999, USA, Rebound by Sagebrush (ISBN 0-8085-1103-3), Pub date ? October 1999, hardback (Library edition)
• 2000, USA, Wings (ISBN 0-517-20860-1), Pub date ? September 2000, hardback
• 2006, USA, Buccaneer Books (ISBN 1-56849-471-8), Pub date 30 August 2006, hardback
• 2007, USA, Vanguard Press (ISBN 1593154496), Pub date 22 May 2007, paperback

References

Alex Haley's grave beside his boyhood home in Henning, Tennessee (2007)

See also

• African American literature