Roots Became a TV Phenomenon 44 Years Ago Today

In 1976, Alex Haley published the book Roots:The Saga of an American Family, telling the story of what he believed to be his family's history. Starting with an ancestor named Kunta Kinte of the Mandinka people in Gambia who was enslaved and brought to America in the late 1700s, it traced his family line through his descendants as they suffered the horrors of slavery, abuse, imprisonment, rape, and murder for more than half a century, until the end of the Civil War.

On January 23, 1977,the first in an eight episode TV adaptation premiered on ABC, simply called Roots, and it did not shy away from depicting the raw brutality and absolute inhumanity of the slave experience. After screening the series,  network executives were fearful that this horrifying reality would scare away audiences, so they decided to "dump" it over consecutive nights, just get it over with. Instead it became a worldwide phenomenon, winner of nine Emmy Awards, and its final episode remains the third-highest rated show of all time. 

The teenage Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton) suffers through being abducted from his village, imprisoned on a slave ship crossing the ocean, sold as property and whipped savagely until he breaks and relinquishes his real name and accepts his slave name of Toby. The adult Kunta Kinte (John Amos, Good Times) has resigned himself to his captivity after his escape attempts are foiled, and has to watch helplessly as his teenage daughter Kizzy (Leslie Uggams) is punished for helping Noah (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Welcome Back Kotter) try to escape by being sold to a rapist whose child she must bear. That child is George (Ben Vereen), who is later forced to leave his wife and children once he is bartered away by his owner to pay off a lost wager. The anguish felt by families forcibly torn apart is pain that echoes into our modern times.

Familiar white television actors of the era, like Lorne Greene (Bonanza), Chuck Connors (The Rifleman), Robert Reed (The Brady Bunch), Sandy Duncan (Funny Face) and Ralph Waite (The Waltons), were cast in the roles as slaveowners and traders to great effect, as their reputations for playing likeable and trustworthy characters made their ruthless betrayals in Roots all the more devastating.

Roots forced a national conversation about the legacy of slavery that continues to this day. It became a powerful cultural touchstone, spawning a 1979 sequel: Roots: The Next Generations, which continued tracing the Kunta Kinte lineage to Haley himself, as played by James Earl Jones, and a 1988 Christmas TV-movie called Roots: The Gift, which took place between episodes 2 and 3 of the original series and featured Burton returning to the role.

The History Channel produced a remake of Roots in 2016, starring Malachi Kirby (Black Mirror) as young Kunta Kinte, Anika Noni Rose (Dreamgirls) as Kizzy, and gave an "introducing" credit to the breakout star of Bridgerton, Regé-Jean Page, as George. 

Andy Hunsaker has a head full of sitcom gags and nerd-genre lore, and can be followed @AndyHunsaker if you're into that sort of thing.