Roots: The Gift

Roots: The Gift
Starring	LeVar Burton Louis Gossett, Jr.
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
Production
Producer	David L. Wolper
Running time	100 minutes
Original release
Network	ABC
Release	December 11, 1988

Roots: The Gift is a 1988 television film. It is the third installment of the Roots series, which traces the maternal family history of African American author Alex Haley, starting with his great-great-great-great-grandfather Kunta Kinte. The film premiered on ABC on December 11, 1988, with AT&T as the lone national sponsor for the broadcast. LeVar Burton and Louis Gossett, Jr. reprise their respective roles of Kunta Kinte and Fiddler. The film is not considered a strict sequel because it takes place in between the second and third episodes of Roots, making it an interquel.

The film was crafted as a Christmas movie. As one of the characters explains, the "gift" referred to in the title is freedom.

Roots: The Gift is also notable in that it features four actors who each portrayed a major character in a Star Trek television series: Burton (Geordi La Forge from Star Trek: The Next Generation), Avery Brooks (Benjamin Sisko from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Kate Mulgrew (Kathryn Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager), and Tim Russ (Tuvok from Star Trek: Voyager).

Plot summary

In December 1775, Cletus Moyer (Brooks) is a free black Northerner in colonial America, working with the Underground Railroad to help slaves escape captivity. In the days just prior to Christmas, a group of bounty hunters led by Hattie Carraway (Mulgrew) capture Moyer near the Parker plantation in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Because of his capture, dozens of slaves who have already left their plantations in escape attempts are in danger of being captured. Moyer implores two slaves from the nearby Reynolds plantation to take his place: Kunta Kinte (Burton), a Mandinka in his early 20s who was captured in what is now Gambia, and Fiddler (Gossett), an elderly man who was born into slavery. Kunta is eager to help (and to escape himself), but Fiddler is unwilling, fearful of the consequences if they are caught.

Cast

• LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte
• Louis Gossett, Jr. as Fiddler
• Jerry Hardin as Reynolds
• Kate Mulgrew as Hattie Carraway
• Shaun Cassidy as Edmund Parker, Jr.
• Avery Brooks as Cletus Moyer
• Michael Learned as Amelia

Peter Hardwick as Chicken George

• John McMartin as Edmund Parker, Sr.
• Tim Russ as Marcellus
• Introduction by Alex Haley