Roots
1 9 7 7 - 1 9 7 8 (USA)
4 x 120 minute episodes
4 x 60 minute episodes
 Suddenly,
over eight consecutive nights in January 1977, there was Roots,
a series about a black man's search for his origins (a quest that
took him back through American slavery to ancestors in a remote
West African village).
But not only blacks were watching. The whole of the USA was
enthralled by Alex Haley's story about the slave Kunta Kinte, his
daughter Kizzy, her son Chicken George, and so on through four
generations.
The series chronicled the 100-year history of Kunta Kinte's
family, from capture in Africa by slave-traders around 1750, to
eventual emancipation in post Civil War America.
The series picked up the action around 1750 with the capture of
Kunta Kinte, and followed him on his journey to the US where he
was forced to adopt the new name of Toby.
Later, his daughter, Kizzy, was raped by her owner (a white
plantation owner) and gave birth to a son, who was eventually
known as Chicken George. George's son, Tom, then fought in the
American Civil War before moving to Tennessee to be 'freed'.
 Freedom
unfortunately involved very few civil rights, grim poverty and
poor education.
Five years later, Roots: The Next Generation picked up
the story once again, this time around 1880 and continued through
to the late 1960s, finishing with Alex, a noted writer who
returned to Africa to discover his roots.
Over the course of the saga, viewers saw brutal whippings and
many agonising moments, rapes, the forced separations of families,
slave auctions.
Through it all, however, Roots compelled the US to face
its chequered past. It was hardly a serious history of
slave-trading, but the emotional charge of a monstrous injustice
was still there.
It was a landmark TV mini series that towered over the decade,
with 130 million viewers - over half of the population of the USA
- tuned in to the last episode.
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